


Full Circle

by TheSingerThatYouWanted (orphan_account)



Series: The Fabled Police AU [1]
Category: Nathan Barley (TV)
Genre: Detective AU, Eventual Romance, It's hard to explain, M/M, Police AU, Slow Build, There's a lot of swearing, probably some violence later on but I'll tag that when I come to it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-14
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-01 12:51:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 43,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2773625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/TheSingerThatYouWanted
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan Ashcroft has finally got his job back after a six-month suspension. The new DCI assigns him a partner to work with. They don't always see eye to eye, but when a case comes up they're forced to put aside their differences.</p><p>Yes, my summaries suck. Please read the thing, I promise it's better than I'm making it sound.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Space Oddity

**Author's Note:**

> I want to go on a little ramble about why the hell I'm writing a police AU but it's quite late where I am and it's a long story so for now let's just accept that I'm writing a police AU. It's very vaguely based on the fantastic BBC series Life on Mars and the follow-up of Ashes to Ashes, hence the Bowie chapter titles. If anything comes up in later chapters that I haven't tagged then I'll put a warning. And that's about it, I think. Please give it a chance.  
> Ooh, also I think Jones turned out a bit too Vince-ish in the first chapter. I'll work on that.

Looking up at the building- dull grey, imposing- Dan knew it was going to be a bad day. The shriek of his 6:30 wake-up call was still ringing in his ears, making his head pound, and he was certain deep in his heart that once he stepped through those double doors there would be no escaping the attention. He hadn’t been to work in months and, while there were probably rumours, nobody knew the full story. They’d be like flies on a corpse; which was, incidentally, what he felt like. He made a mental note to grab at least one cup of coffee on his way in. He’d need it to deal with the inevitable interrogation. They may have all shared a deep dislike of reporters, but in truth there was no bigger gossip than a police officer.  
As he walked into the building, Dan began to count silently. It was an old habit of his, born out of self-loathing and cynicism. He used it to remind himself of the predictability of it all, the hopelessness. Perhaps it worked a little too well. He was in no way inclined to stop.  
Five- the creak of the door opening, hinges still in need of repair just like they had been for years. He hadn’t expected there to be any change in his absence. The noise was oddly comforting. Four- the usual nod and grudging half-smile directed towards the receptionist, who raised her carefully shaped eyebrows in surprise at seeing him but said nothing. Three- the handful of steps that took him to the doors of the lift, which smelled of urine no matter how many times it was cleaned. When he’d first started on the job he’d expected more from a police station. Now he expected no less. Two- Dan closed his eyes as he heard the door to the stairs swing open, clattering obnoxiously against the wall. And one- the inevitable.  
“Ashcroooooft!”  
Nathan practically ran across the room, vacant grin plastered all across his face. Dan fought the urge to roll his eyes and offered the younger man a curt smile.  
“Hello, Nathan,” he said quietly, hoping that Nathan would take the hint for once in his life and leave him alone. He bit back a disgusted groan as Nathan stepped closer, revealing that he was chewing that dreadful cola-scented gum he didn’t seem to be able to live without. His hair was in an even more outrageous style than he remembered it. Dan wondered if it was held that way by hair gel, willpower, or possibly just refusal to wash. As always Nathan was oblivious to how ridiculous he looked, beaming like a spoilt rich kid on Christmas morning who just knew that all his presents were better than everyone else’s.  
“I thought you weren’t coming back! Hey, man, what happened anyway? Nobody’s telling us anything.”  
Dan felt his chest tighten and he suddenly felt even more like he’d had a ton of bricks thrown at his face. He was about to try and formulate a reply other than “fuck off,” but then he heard the distinctive ‘ding’ of the lift arriving and gave a small sigh of relief. Saved by the bell.  
“I’d love to tell you, but I really have to go,” he said, stepping into the lift and smiling as the doors slid closed. His momentary happiness turned immediately to horror as Nathan stuck an arm in the gap, making the doors open again. He hopped in.  
“No worries, Preach. I’m going this way anyway.”  
Dan couldn’t hide his disgust at Nathan’s use of the nickname. The relationship between the two men was complicated. If you asked Nathan he’d probably say they were friends, ‘mates’, close as brothers. If you asked Dan he’d be more likely to tell you that Nathan was the office idiot who’d inexplicably latched on to him and didn’t seem able to take a hint. He’d followed Dan everywhere for a few weeks, especially after the Robertson case. Dan had hoped that he’d find a new idol when Dan wasn’t there, but it seemed not. Even more annoyingly, everyone else loved him, so Dan had nobody to complain to. To call it irritating would be an understatement.  
As the lift slid jerkily upwards, Dan decided he might as well use his stalker to his advantage.  
“What did I miss?” he asked, keeping his gaze directed forward so he didn’t have to look at Nathan’s idiotic grin, stupid hairstyle, or any one of the six or seven hundred other things he disliked about the man. Nathan clapped him on the shoulder in a matey sort of way, and Dan jerked away. Being in a lift, this only really resulted in him stumbling awkwardly into the wall. Luckily Nathan didn’t comment or Dan might’ve left again then and there.  
“Oh, loads of stuff. Jonatton got a transfer, so that bugger’s off in narcotics now. Traitor. Pingu got a girlfriend, somehow, she’s a right mess but don’t say that to his face or he’ll throw a right wobbly. And there’s a new DCI. His name’s Malcolm, he’s a proper tit. Thinks he’s better than us. Good at his job though, so do what he tells you and bitch behind his back, you’ll be alright.”  
Dan nodded tightly as the lift juddered to a halt.  
“Great. Cheers, Nathan.”  
The thanks were delivered as coldly as Dan could manage, but Nathan grinned anyway as they exited. He spun around to face Dan, walking backwards for a few paces. Dan could barely stand watching him, the imbecile.  
“No problem, Preach. Peace and fucking, alright?”  
Dan nodded vaguely, distaste visible in the lines on his forehead. He’d never pretended to understand Nathan’s weird catchphrases- he still failed to see how something could be described as “totally fucking Mexico” and interpreted as good- but he also knew that the man would never leave him alone unless he at least made an effort.  
“Yeah- peace and…”  
He trailed off, but Nathan didn’t seem to notice. He spun to face the only person Dan felt the slightest sympathy for- Pingu, who also seemed to have been burdened with an annoyingly affectionate Nathan and had no idea how to get rid of him.  
“Oi, Pingu!” yelled Nathan, making practically everyone in the room turn and stare. Dan wanted to curl up and hide from the attention, but there was no point now. Nathan cupped his hands around his mouth, amplifying the yell to even more unnecessary levels.  
“Look who’s back! It’s the fuckin’ Preacher Man!”  
And then Nathan was off, weaving in and out of the crowd of people like he hadn’t just single-handedly ruined Dan’s day. Pingu shot him an apologetic glance from his desk across the room. One by one, people were approaching. They were trying to be subtle about it- trips to the printer, watering the obligatory office plant, taking a call from the one corner of the room that inexplicably had much better reception than anywhere else- but Dan knew their real motivation. They wanted to know the story.  
“Well, fuck them,” muttered Dan, walking towards the tiny kitchen in the corner. He rinsed out a chipped cup in the sink, silently abandoning all hope of ever seeing his favourite Ramones mug again. It was sad really. That had been his way of telling himself he had a life away from the office. Idiots and murder. The combination did wonderful things to your sanity.  
Beside him, the kettle bubbled and hissed. His colleagues were approaching still, and he began preparing replies. Sixteen or so mental variations on “fuck off, you nosey bastard” later, when he was just a couple of metres from the nearest predatory gossip-junkie, the office fell abruptly silent. Dan continued sulkily making his coffee, just grateful for the relief on his pounding head. A few seconds later it clicked that there was probably a reason for the silence and he dropped his spoon, swearing quietly and turning around. The DCI’s office door was open and someone Dan didn’t recognise was glaring out at the room. This must be Martin, or whatever Nathan said his name was. He gave Dan a sickeningly insincere smile.  
“Mr Ashcroft, I presume? If you could just come here a moment, please.”  
His voice was unusual, like he was being very careful about what words to say. He picked over pronunciation like he was reading from a checklist on how to construct sentences. Dan stared for a moment, then nodded.  
“Yeah. Sorry, of course. Can I just-?”  
He gestured to his half-made cup of coffee. The DCI- Malcolm, that was his name- smiled again and shook his head.  
“No, you may not. You can get back to your coffee when we’re done.”  
Dan frowned. He hadn’t always seen eye-to-eye with the old DCI, but he at least followed the unspoken rule of detective work. You could stop an officer from seeing his children if he was undercover, you could ban him from talking to his significant other if he was focussing on a difficult case, but you never, ever, stood between a man and his coffee. Especially if that man was named Dan Ashcroft.  
“Fine,” he said, then amended himself. Best to at least start out sounding polite. “I mean, that’s perfectly okay. It was just a suggestion.”  
“Good,” said Malcolm. “Now get back to work everyone, I’m sure there’s something useful you could be doing.”  
Dan left the cup where it was, utterly certain that when he got back someone would have taken it away and he’d have to wash out another one, and walked as smartly as he could manage across the room. He ran his fingers absent-mindedly through his hair as he did so, hoping to tidy it a little but probably just making it worse. He had made an effort for his first day back, he really had- he’d showered, shaved, even trimmed his hair (with his own clippers. After the incident with the hairdresser’s cat he’d found it was easier that way)- but without his morning coffee he quickly began to look like a furious zombie. He gave up and sat down on the tiny chair in the office, looking across the desk at the DCI. Malcolm leered at him, smugness practically oozing off of him as he shuffled some meaningless papers to make himself look important. He allowed silence to hang in the air for a few seconds before finally speaking in the same clipped tone as before.  
“Now, Mr Ashcroft-”  
“Call me Dan.”  
Dan hadn’t said this out of warmth, or friendship, or even as an attempt to get the DCI to trust him. He just really hated being called Ashcroft. Pathetic, really, when you thought about it; the Idiots had even ruined his own name for him. DCI Malcolm gave the patronising smile once more. Dan had only known him five minutes and already he wanted to punch him. Though thinking about it that might just be due to the lack of caffeine in his life.  
“Dan, then. Your previous DCI left some notes concerning you. It seems like he thought you were somehow… exceptional.”  
He let the word slip over his tongue like some kind of slug, turning what should have been a compliment into something cold and heavy in the pit of Dan’s stomach. Malcolm shuffled his papers again.  
“Let’s see… ah yes, here it is. Twelve successful convictions since joining CID three years ago, several pieces of undercover work- I must admit, this is impressive.”  
“Thank you, sir.”  
Dan had stopped taking pride in his work long ago, but anything that made the DCI admit he was worth something was something that meant he was more likely to get his old job back. Besides, that stuff was easy. Dan was a natural at undercover work. He had nobody tying him down; no friends, no family other than his sister, Claire, who worked down in forensics and hated him anyway. He was perfect at slipping into the background. Nobody ever noticed him.  
“Yes, but then we come to the incident a few months ago. The, ah, Robertson case.”  
Dan swallowed, looking down at his lap. His hands were shaking, he noticed. Was it fear or anger that made them do that? He clenched his fists and forced himself to meet the DCI’s gaze.  
“Yes, sir.”  
There was a horrible, sickening pause, the sort you get at the top of a rollercoaster or when you miss a step on your way downstairs.  
“Dan, you have proved yourself repeatedly to be a capable officer. According to these reports there is nothing to suggest you are unfit to hold your current rank of Detective Inspector. However, I am yet to see you in action. Given your, shall we say, emotional state over the last few months, therefore, I am going to assign you a partner to work with. He’s one of our brightest new recruits. I think you’ll be good for each other.”  
“But-”  
Malcolm continued talking over him.  
“You will work with him for a minimum period of six months. His task will be to give you something to focus on, to stop a repeat of your last case. Yours is to show him the ropes. He’s an intelligent young man, knows the book inside-out, but he lacks basic policing skills. You are to teach him this. Do you understand?”  
Dan bit his tongue, looking down and away. He felt like a teenager again, hauled up to the head teacher’s office for staging a protest against unfair detentions. Oh, the irony of that one. This time, though, there was more at stake. He couldn’t afford to lose this job.  
“Yes, sir. Perfectly reasonable,” he managed to say through gritted teeth. The DCI smiled.  
“Good. You may leave. Your partner will be here shortly.”  
It took all of Dan’s self-control not to stomp out of the room like a petulant child. He left the room without slamming the door and walked over to the kitchen, trying his best to ignore the feeling of everyone’s eyes burning into the back of his head. His mug had vanished, and so had all the others. He groaned. It was some sort of conspiracy, he decided. The world, for reasons unknown, was trying to keep him from his coffee. It wasn’t even his morning coffee any more, it was nearly 12:30. Dan was seriously contemplating just sitting down at his desk and crying when someone tapped him on the shoulder.  
“Oh, fuck off, you nosey bastard,” he growled, turning around to see his sister frowning at him.  
“Oh, right. So you won’t be wanting this then?” she said sarcastically, holding up his Ramones mug. Dan grabbed it from her, not even wincing as the hot liquid splashed over his hands. He downed half the mug in one go, feeling a little better as the caffeine hit his system. Claire looked at him with disdain.  
“You have a problem,” she said scornfully, sitting on the table and swinging her legs. Dan nodded, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.  
“Yeah. I know. The new DCI’s gone and assigned me some stupid newbie to work with.”  
“Not that kind of problem, you twat,” said Claire, but she was smiling. The two of them only ever seemed to communicate via insults anyway, and at least this time nobody was throwing anything. She leaned forward, grinning.  
“Seriously though? You, partnering up with some rookie?”  
She laughed and leaned back smugly against the wall.  
“I’ll believe it when I see it. I don’t know who I’m more frightened for, you or him.”  
Dan gave a hollow chuckle, taking another sip of coffee. Strong black coffee, just how he liked it. It was policeman’s coffee- easy to make and woke you up fast. He’d gone days at a time on nothing but cups of coffee, too many to contemplate. Of course, that had been before. Now he was trying- and failing- to wean himself off it.  
“I know. One of us is going to come out of this in a box, I can tell.”  
He heard the door open on the other side of the office and glanced up, rolling his eyes when he saw the newcomer. Claire craned her neck to look. Peering awkwardly around the door was a young man, in his early twenties by the look of him. He was wearing a suit but was clearly uncomfortable in it, continually tugging at the collar like it was suffocating him. Actually… Dan did a quick double-take, making sure that the visitor really was a man. He had fairly feminine features and his dark hair came almost to his shoulders. Clearly he was uncomfortable in formal situations. A bag was slung over his shoulder, and Dan could see that it was covered in badges and patches. He sighed. One of the Idiots, then, but trying to hide it.  
“Go and see what he wants, won’t you?” said Claire, nudging him. Dan shook his head.  
“I’ll just insult him. You do it.”  
She sighed and got up, shoving Dan forward.  
“Go on. Make an effort. If you’re gonna be back at work then I’m not listening to your bloody whinging all day.”  
Reluctantly, still hoping someone else would intervene, he made his way over. The young man’s face lit up when he saw Dan approaching, a relieved grin splitting his face. His blue eyes practically glowed. Without really knowing why Dan found himself offering, if not a friendly smile, at least a lukewarm one.  
“Are you looking for someone?” he asked. The young man absent-mindedly brushed his fringe from his eyes and smiled a little shyly.  
“Yeah, sorry. Is there a, um-”  
He swung his bag around, rummaging in it for something. Dan noticed a Ramones patch on the strap and briefly considered the possibility that maybe he wasn’t such an idiot after all. Then he remembered the way the Idiots would latch on to random older bands because they thought it made them look sophisticated, and stopped considering. After an awkward few seconds the younger man pulled out a small notebook, brown cardboard but covered in drawings, and leafed through it.  
“Sorry. Um. I’m looking for a Dan Ashcroft?”  
Dan’s heart sank.  
“Why?”  
The stranger frowned, looking a little lost.  
“I was told to come up here? I’m working with him. Do you know him? Am I in the wrong place? Oh, god, if I’ve done that again-”  
“No, I’m Dan Ashcroft. It’s just that you can’t be my partner.”  
The younger man stepped back, looking genuinely confused. He reached up to fiddle with his hair again, obviously a nervous habit of his. Dan actually felt bad for a moment at having upset him.  
“What? Why?”  
“It’s just you- you’re not- I don’t-”  
Dan stumbled over his words, cursing inwardly for it. He just couldn’t quite articulate why this man couldn’t be his partner except for the fact that he was literally everything that Dan’s partner shouldn’t be. He was young, and artistic, and optimistic, and he was strangely similar to Dan back in high school. He couldn’t stand it.  
He felt a shift in the room, the air becoming slimier, and knew deep in his gut that the DCI had smarmed his way over.  
“Ah, Dan,” he said, and Dan had to suppress a shudder at the sound of his name in the creep’s mouth. “I see you’ve met Jones. You’ll be working together from now on, so I suggest you get to know each other.”  
With a final smirk the DCI left. The young man, Jones, grinned up at Dan. That was another thing- he was a full head shorter than Dan, and much slimmer.  
“Partners, right?” he said cheerily. He seemed much more confident now that he knew he was in the right place. “Genius.”  
Dan couldn’t quite bring himself to answer.


	2. Moonage Daydream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan has never been good at working with others, but their first case comes up too soon for him to argue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I having a little too much fun with this fic? Yes I am. Am I spending more time on this than on my maths revision? Certainly. Did I intend for there to be so many unnecessary Pink Floyd references? Not in the slightest.

Dan made another cup of coffee. It was what he did when he was stressed. Come to think of it, he made coffee when he was happy too. And angry. And tired. It was practically his default after so many years in the police force. The kettle protested loudly as the water inside came slowly to the boil, hissing clouds of steam rising towards the grimy ceiling tiles, an uncomfortable breath of humidity in the post-Christmas gloom. Outside the windows he had an unrivalled view of London sinking into the inevitable depression that always comes when the alcohol wears off. Three days into the new year and it was already worse than the old one.  
Jones materialised by his elbow, smile still in place. His long hair apparently required constant maintenance, as barely a minute went by without him running a hand through it. He did so now. Dan tried not to let it annoy him. There would be plenty of other opportunities to find things to hate about his new partner.  
“Ooh, coffee? Can I have one?”  
Dan snorted derisively.  
“You’ll be lucky.”  
Jones looked quizzically at him, and he reluctantly elaborated.  
“There’s no cups. There’s never any cups.”  
Jones’ smile faltered, just for a moment, and Dan felt an unexpected spike of sympathy for the man. He was in his twenties, sure, but in detective terms he was barely more than a kid. He’d probably never even seen a dead body outside of a TV show. Dan almost felt bad at being the one responsible for destroying that innocence, and filed it away in the steadily growing section of his brain devoted to all the reasons he disliked the new DCI. He sighed and walked over to his desk, gesturing for Jones to follow him.  
“Do you know what the deal is here?” he said, trying to remember how to ask questions without being either sarcastic or accusatory. It had been a long time since he’d met anyone he had to be nice to. He saw Jones shake his head out of the corner of his eye as he sat down, clearing away the small heap of ‘get well soon’ post-it notes and cards with an impatient sweep of his arm. They fluttered to the floor, some landing in the bin but most meeting nothing but carpet. Jones stared, transfixed by the swirling movements of paper in a hundred sizes and colours. For a split second he looked vulnerable, open, beautiful. Dan frowned in confusion. How could such a simple thing be so fascinating to him?  
Jones noticed him staring and blushed, a hint of colour entering his pale cheeks as he hurriedly looked around for a chair. After a moment he grabbed the back of Nathan’s chair and dragged it over, sitting down opposite Dan. His hands fidgeted restlessly, picking up a pencil from Dan’s desk and twirling it between his long fingers without even looking. The older man stared for a while, then realised Jones was looking at him expectantly and cleared his throat.  
“According to our new Lord High Majesty over there,” said Dan, nodding towards the DCI’s office, “we need to work together. I’ve been off work for a while. I think he’s just looking for an excuse to keep an eye on me.”  
Jones laughed.  
“Bit paranoid, ain’t you? Why would he be watching you?”  
Dan shook his head, feeling the memories rising to the surface like a shoal of angry mackerel and suppressing them with a gulp of coffee.  
“It doesn’t matter.”  
“I think it does matter. If I’m going to be your partner then shouldn’t I at least know what my job’s going to be?”  
Jones was leaning forward, elbows all over Dan’s desk. His hair seemed to have perked up a little at the prospect of having to argue the point. He didn’t look angry- more like insistent. He so earnestly wanted to do things right. Dan knew, because he’d seen it in the mirror years previously. He’d joined the force because he honestly believed there was good in people and they deserved to be protected. Now he viewed his job as more a case of finding the bad in everyone. So far he’d succeeded mostly in finding the bad in himself.  
“Your job is to make sure nothing bad happens, and trust me, you’ll know bad when you see it. My job is to teach you how to be a detective. You’re good, according to everything I’ve heard, which admittedly isn’t very much. You know the book inside-out, you can see right from wrong. Correct?”  
Jones, nodded, thrown a little off balance. Dan smiled faintly and nodded.  
“Good. That’s a start. You know what you’re supposed to do, which means you know what to tell that tit of a DCI when he comes chasing after you with a stick up his arse. But you don’t know the other rules yet. Nobody ever really tells you those. That’s why I’m here, so sit down and stop making an arse of yourself. First lesson, invest in a mug.”  
He lifted his own mug as he spoke, as though giving a toast, then drank deeply. Jones slowly deflated, sinking down into his too-large suit and sitting back in his chair. He took a shaky breath and dropped the pencil he was holding, letting it slip through his fingers before folding his hands in his lap. He looked the perfect picture of a chastened child, sitting before his parents as they finally lose patience with him.  
“Sorry,” he said after a moment. “I just get nervous. I’m not sure how I got here, but I’m sure as fuck not leaving, right?”  
He gave a nervous laugh and pushed his hair back again. Dan found the habit was beginning to grow on him. He opened his mouth but whatever he was going to say was drowned out by an obnoxious yell from behind him.  
“Alright, Preach?”  
Nathan. God knows where he’d scuttled off to earlier- Dan had worked with him for at least a year and still didn’t know what his job actually was- but as always he’d turned up like a bad smell at the least appropriate moment possible. He closed his eyes, hoping that maybe if he ignored Nathan the man would go away, like he’d always been taught by the more patronising of his teachers. Instead of the irritating braying he’d been expecting, he heard the sound of a chair scraping back and a very different voice to the one he’d been expecting.  
“Look, mate, what are you on?”  
Risking a peek out from beneath one eyelid, Dan saw Jones was standing and squaring up to the other men. Nathan looked almost intimidated by him.  
“Just wanted a word with the Preacher Man over here,” he said, clearly fighting to keep the cockiness in his voice. Jones shrugged his shoulders.  
“Well don’t, yeah? I’m gonna be working with him, and I can tell you right now that this conversation is more important than anything you’ve got to say to him.”  
Dan stifled a laugh, hiding his grin in his coffee cup. Jones looked so indignant on his behalf. Clearly he wasn’t fooled by Nathan’s act. He was glaring at him, trying and failing to be intimidating. His bright blue eyes didn’t exactly lend themselves to making threats. Nathan held his gaze for a few seconds before apparently deciding it wasn’t worth it.  
“Whatever. But you don’t know who you’re dealing with. Preacher Man here, he’s with me, am I right?”  
“No.”  
Somehow Dan managed to remain utterly deadpan, looking Nathan straight in the eye. The younger man frowned, backing away but quickly recovering his smile. He pointed back at Dan as he left.  
“Yeah, that’s right, Preach. Always joking, ain’t you?”  
Dan raised an eyebrow and Nathan gestured a little helplessly between the two men.  
“He is, he- we’re mates, honest, I- you’re messing with the wrong guy.”  
Jones took a sharp step towards him and Nathan practically ran from the office. Jones watched him go, staring after him until the doors finally swung to a halt. When he turned back to Dan he was fighting down a grin.  
“What a dick,” he managed to say between giggles. “Who’s he think he is? ‘Preacher Man’. Honestly.”  
His whole face lit up with happiness when he laughed, eyes even brighter than usual. Dan chuckled in response. It didn’t seem like much, not compared to Jones’ infectious grin, but as the younger man looked sheepishly away he realised it was the first time in months that he’d found something genuinely funny. He set his cup down and looked at his new partner properly for the first time. He was maybe a little older than he’d first appeared, closer to thirty than twenty. His features were largely androgynous, and there were subtle streaks of colour in his dark hair. Dark blues and reds, interwoven with the black. He bit his lip when he was thinking. He didn’t look like a bad guy, but he also didn’t quite look innocent. He was a little naïve, maybe, but there was a determination in his eyes that Dan admired. He held out a hand across the desk.  
“Let’s do this properly, shall we? I’m Dan Ashcroft. Call me Dan.”  
Jones grinned and shook his hand firmly.  
“Nice to meet you, Dan. I’m Jones.”  
“Just Jones?”  
“Yeah. Never had much use for full names, really.”  
Dan didn’t press the point, nodding and leaning back in his chair. It had been a long time since he’d sat there. He’d forgotten how comfortable it was.  
“Okay then, Jones. Why are you here?”  
Jones shot him a confused glance. Dan gestured vaguely at him.  
“People like you don’t usually become detectives,” he said eventually.  
“People like me?”  
“Yeah. You know…”  
Dan hesitated, searching for the words.  
“Most of us here hate the world for one reason or another. Claire, my sister- she’s in forensics, you’ll probably have to deal with her at some point- she joined up to spite me, prove that she was better than me. Nathan thinks the world is his playground and therefore seems to have dedicated himself to screwing it all up. Pingu… actually I don’t know what Pingu does, but that’s not the point. You don’t look like the world’s gotten to you yet. You’ve got a bag covered in badges, you’ve got hair in colours that don’t exist in nature. So why are you here?”  
Jones simply shrugged.  
“Because I want to be.”  
Dan went to reply, question him further, but before he got the chance Jones was leaning forward again. The small space brought their faces uncomfortably close but Dan didn’t lean back. Jones looked him dead in the eyes, searching his soul for something Dan wasn’t willing to give up.  
“What about you?” he said quietly, not breaking eye contact. “What do you hate so much that in the ten minutes I’ve known you you’ve had three cups of something that might be either coffee or battery acid?”  
A beat passed between them before Jones continued. The momentary silence hung in the air, drawing attention like a weight distorting the world around it. Dan didn’t want to think about the last time he’d been in such close proximity with someone.  
“What is it I’m looking for, Dan?” Jones whispered. Dan’s mouth was dry and he couldn’t answer even if he’d wanted to. The younger man showed no signs of discomfort or moving away.  
“Well, this is cosy,” said DCI Malcolm, his slimy tones cutting through the tension between them. Dan jerked away, scrambling to compose himself.  
“Sorry to interrupt your little chat,” he said, smirking, “but some actual police work came up that I thought you might be interested in.”  
He slid a piece of paper onto the desk between them. Jones went to grab it, then hesitated and let Dan take it. The DCI kept talking as Dan read the single sheet. There wasn’t much on it.  
“There’s been a kidnapping called in, down on the other side of town. The address is on there, as well as a transcript of the call. Apparently this woman’s daughter was playing at the park by their house when she saw a man- we’ve not got a description- take away one of the other people there. You’re to go down, do a few interviews, maybe point forensics in the right direction. Nothing too strenuous- you might as well start off easy, right?”  
Dan stood up, perhaps a little too quickly, and grabbed his coat. Jones followed his lead, swinging his bag over his shoulder. There really were hundreds of badges on it- Dan suspected that if all the pins and patches were removed the whole thing might just fall apart. The DCI left, and Dan grabbed his car keys from the little hook beside his desk that police regulations decreed they be kept on.  
“Come on,” he said, quickly patting his pockets to make sure he had his ID and a notebook. “Time to see what you’ve got.”  
Jones grinned at him, shrugging his own coat on with practiced ease.  
“Oh, you’ll see what I’ve got,” he replied cheekily. Dan rolled his eyes and headed for the door, hearing Jones follow at his heels.  
They took the lift down to the car park. Jones didn’t speak much- he seemed nervous, checking his pockets and bag every few moments. Eventually Dan felt he had to say something.  
“You’ll be fine.”  
Jones jumped, startled.  
“Who says I’m not fine already?” he said, but with a little less confidence in his voice. The metal doors clattered open and together the two men stepped out into the cold January air. Jones hissed as it hit him and pulled his jacket tighter around him, still looking at Dan for an answer.  
“Your whole body,” Dan replied. Jones glanced at him, expression equal parts irritation and relief. Dan found himself smiling gently.  
“Look, it’s alright. I was terrified before my first proper case, and my DCI wasn’t half as bad as that dick.”  
Jones laughed, hiding his face in his coat collar. They reached the car- a pale blue Ford focus, which Dan tried to think of as nicely inconspicuous but was really just a bit boring- and Dan opened the doors. Jones practically leapt for the passenger door, and Dan leaned across from his side to chuck the miscellaneous pieces of rubbish and paper to the back seat so his partner would have room. Jones slid inside gratefully, shivering a little.  
“Shit, it’s cold,” he said as Dan closed the door. “Bloody weather. I’ve never seen the point of winter past Christmas. Once the presents are gone, where’s the fun? It’s all just grumpy people with hangovers and freezing rain.”  
Dan shook his head and started up the engine. For a few seconds silence hung over the car, but apparently Jones wasn’t willing to let that happen.  
“Ooh, CDs!” he said excitedly, reaching for the small black wallet on the dashboard. “What have you got?”  
“You know, I actually can’t remember,” said Dan, looking behind them while he reversed out of their parking space. “It’s been a while. See anything you like?”  
He made a point of not looking at the younger man. He was still undecided on whether or not he could cope with having him as a partner- he seemed a little too volatile, too emotional, and knowing his music taste was a fairly accurate indicator of the kind of guy he was. If nothing else it would let him know which of his badges the guy actually knew anything about.  
Jones muttered to himself as he flicked through the collection of discs.  
“Let’s see… The Smiths, Ramones, The Clash- Pink Floyd, genius!”  
Dan looked across at him, smiling. Pink Floyd were his second-favourite band. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. At least he now knew he wouldn’t have pop music inflicted upon him at all hours of the day. That could definitely lead to a repeat of the Robertson incident.  
“What, you like Pink Floyd?”  
“Yeah, they’re my favourite,” said Jones excitedly. “Can we put this on?”  
Dan shrugged, aiming for nonchalant but probably coming off as confused.  
“Don’t see why not.”  
Jones quickly slipped the disc into the CD player and turned the volume up. Dan winced when he saw how high the volume setting actually was.  
“Don’t you think you should-” he began, but the rest of the sentence was lost as Jones skipped through the tracks until he found what he was looking for. As the title track started playing the younger man opened his mouth and began to sing along.  
“So, so you think you can tell…”  
Dan had to physically force himself to keep looking straight ahead. Jones’ had a surprisingly good singing voice, a little rough but full of energy, and he tipped his head back and closed his eyes as the music carried him away. He let his guard drop, not seeming to care if people were looking. In fact, with the way he was tilting his neck to expose more skin, it seemed he wanted to be noticed. It was almost painful for Dan to look away. After the first verse he felt a sharp nudge in his side and heard Jones mutter to him.  
“Come on, join in. you know you want to.”  
Dan could hear the smile in his voice. He tried to avoid it, he really did. He never sang in public. Admittedly this wasn’t exactly public, but it had more people in it than his tiny flat did and that meant he wasn’t going to sing.  
His resolve lasted almost a whole verse.  
“A walk-on part in the war, for a lead role in a cage,” he sang quietly. Jones beamed at him and adjusted his vocals slightly, trying to complement Dan’s low, scratchy tones. Together they grew louder, each more confident that the other wasn’t going to laugh at them, until they were belting out each line at the top of their voices.  
“We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl! Year after year!” shouted Dan, inadvertently catching Jones’ eye as he did so. The younger man held his gaze with a grin. Dan tried to ignore the flash of happiness he felt.  
The song faded out eventually, and they travelled the rest of the way looking out of their windows and silently listening to ‘Shine On, You Crazy Diamond’. Somehow it felt as though what had happened was important, though Dan couldn’t quite put his finger on why. The one time he snuck a glance in Jones’ direction the younger man was breathing on the window and tracing patterns in the condensation. Dan found himself frowning. This was what worried him. Jones was strangely likeable, and he clearly had an excellent knowledge of the rules if Malcolm thought he was one of their brightest, but he was unprofessional. Childish. Dan wasn’t sure he could work with someone who was liable to be distracted by whatever shiny object caught his eye.  
The car came to a halt outside an unremarkable row of houses. Opposite them, across the street, was a run-down park, not much more than some swings, a see-saw, and a small patch of grass to play football on. Trees ran alongside it, marking some kind of barrier between the streets and the hills and waste ground beyond. As they prepared to leave the car Jones wiped his sleeve across the window and peered out.  
“I used to live near here,” he said matter-of-factly. Before Dan could respond he had wrapped his scarf around his neck and was standing up beside the car, peering around him intently. All trace of light-heartedness had vanished. Dan was impressed, but it wasn’t enough. He stood too, locking the car and striding towards the park. There were a handful of officers already there, uniforms and forensics, and a woman in her late thirties holding the hand of a small girl. She couldn’t have been more than eight. One of the officers hurried over as they approached.  
“Are you with CID?” he asked, looking a bit frazzled. His curly hair was windswept and untidy, and his glasses were askew on his nose. “Only, that woman won’t shut up. We told her you were on your way but she keeps trying to tell us things and she won’t let her daughter speak. You need to have a word with her.”  
Dan nodded and turned to give Jones an instruction to follow him, but the younger man wasn’t there. He glanced around, wondering where his partner had gone and wanting to shout at him for wandering off, but when he saw what Jones was doing his anger faded. He’d handed the mother his badge and was crouching in front of the girl. Dan couldn’t make out what he was saying, but then the kid laughed and Jones smiled. Dan felt an odd moment of affection.  
“Hello,” he said, walking over to join his colleague. The mother turned to look at him, glaring.  
“Finally. I’ve been standing here for hours. Do you people have better things to do with your time than investigate crimes? Were you drinking? Are you fit to be working?”  
Dan sighed inwardly, wishing that he had been drinking. He knew the type of day this was going to be. People like these, with a chip on their shoulder the size of a small house, were the worst kind of witnesses. They got instantly defensive when they were being cross-examined, were certain that the police were part of some kind of elaborate cover-up, and then tried to tell Dan how to do his job. He hated them.  
“Ma’am, we only got the call forty minutes ago,” he said, trying to keep his tone even and polite. “We came as fast as we could. Now, if you could please answer a few questions for us?”  
She looked away haughtily.  
“Yes, I’m sure you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Get me to do your job for you, so you can slope off back to the station and spend our taxes on doughnuts.”  
Dan’s knuckles went white as he gripped the pen in his hand so hard he thought it might snap.  
“This investigation, as with every case undertaken by CID, depends largely on witness testimonies. That means you. Did you see anything unusual?”  
The woman shook her head.  
“No, I was in the house when the incident took place.”  
Dan made a note, beneath the heading ‘Bitchy Playground Woman’. He tended to remember categories more than faces when it came to witnesses.  
“Uh-huh, and which house would that be?”  
She pointed.  
“Across the street. Number 63. And you’d better not have parked your car on my flowerbeds, I could sue you for that.”  
Dan closed his eyes and counted to three.  
“Hey, boss,” said Jones, cutting through Dan’s steadily-growing headache. He opened his eyes to see Jones standing with one hand on the kid’s shoulder.  
“I spoke to Hannah here, and she says she saw a big man come past.”  
He leaned down again, speaking to Hannah. She smiled at him. Everyone fell for Jones, Dan realised. The kid trusted him, Malcolm praised him, even Bitchy Playground Woman was less aggressive towards him. The only person not to was Nathan. Nathan and Dan, he hurriedly corrected himself. He didn’t hate the guy, but he wasn’t putty in his hands and nor was he going to be. The worst part was that Jones didn’t even realise he was doing it. He was annoying, but something about his cheerful smile and willingness to help was strangely disarming. He was just a genuinely nice guy.  
“Hey, Hannah. This guy here, he’s my friend. We work together. He’s the one that’s gonna catch the bad man you saw. Could you tell him the things you told me?”  
The girl nodded, looking nervously up at Dan. He considered following Jones’ lead and bending down, but somehow he got the feeling it would do nothing to help him seem more trustworthy. He wasn’t a natural ray of sunshine like Jones. He was more like the weird uncle that everyone avoided at parties.  
“I was on the swings,” said Hannah, pointing. “One of the big kids was on the field, a big school kid. She had her music in. I was looking, because she had purple in her hair and it was really pretty. Then a big man with one of those face-hat things came out of the trees and grabbed her. She kicked him a bit, but he was shouting bad words so I hid under the slide in case he saw me too. He hit her and she stopped kicking so he took her into the trees and I ran to get Mum.”  
The girl looked nervously between the three adults.  
“Is that okay?” she asked quietly, sounding like she might cry. Jones nodded and smiled.  
“Thanks, Hannah, that was brilliant. Me and my friends are gonna do our best to catch him, okay?”  
Hannah nodded and went back over to her mother, who was still looking at Dan with disdain. He forced himself to smile at her.  
“We’ll let you know if there are any developments,” he said, slipping his notebook back into his pocket and signalling for Jones to follow him over to the forensics team. The younger man reclaimed his badge and hurried after him. Claire- of course she had to be there, just what Dan needed- looked up as they approached.  
“Hello, Dan,” she said, frowning. “Should’ve known you’d be here. Oh, and is this the protégé?”  
Jones moved forward, holding out a hand.  
“My name’s Jones. I’m assuming you’re his sister?”  
“”Yeah, whatever,” replied Claire, waving him away. “Have you got anything useful for us?”  
“The kid says she saw a man drag a teenage girl off into the trees over there. It might be worth taking a look, check for footprints and so on.”  
Claire nodded and called the rest of her team over.  
“Alright. See you back at the station then. Don’t kill the new guy,” she added, nodding at Jones.  
Dan rolled his eyes and turned to head back to the car, Jones quickly falling into step beside him. As they walked Dan flicked back over his notes, pausing at Hannah’s description.  
“What does she mean, ‘face-hat’?”  
“Balaclava.”  
“Ah.”  
They got into the car and drove back to the station to the sound of the Ramones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully you guys are enjoying this. I own nobody important in this fic, nor do I own the songs titling it. Comments are seriously awesome, so if you have two minutes please just drop me a note.


	3. Underground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cold cases and hot coffee.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yep, I did just name a chapter of a serious story after a song from the Labyrinth soundtrack. Try and stop me.  
> Warnings for this one- some past alcoholism mentioned (not sure if that came up before, sorry if it did and I didn't tag it). Other than that I think it's alright. This chapter was written partly on my phone and almost entirely at stupid hours of the night while listening to Queen albums on repeat. If I've made any mistakes, therefore, I think we can safely blame them on caffeine and Freddie Mercury.

“…and the thing is, he never even gave me my shoes back. So there I was, like a total fucking idiot, standing outside some suspect’s house, and I couldn’t run after him because he’d stolen my fucking shoes!”  
Dan laughed, pulling into the car park with a smile. Jones, in the seat next to him, was cracking up at his own anecdote. About halfway through the journey Jones had made a joke along the lines of ‘well, that could have been worse’, and somehow that had escalated into the pair of them swapping stories about their worst disasters. Jones had dominated the conversation so far. All of Dan's mishaps had been buried in the dark depths of his mind as failures, things to count during the darkest times, at two in the morning when he was on his second bottle of something that might have been whiskey but by this point could have been antifreeze for all he cared. He’d never considered the possibility that they could be used in a positive way. Listening to Jones as he tried unsuccessfully to calm down, wiping tears of laughter from his eyes before launching into yet another story, Dan felt a sense of loss. This was what he could have been, what he should have tried harder to be. Then Jones grinned at him and the loss turned to hope. Maybe he could try again. Maybe, at the very least, he could help preserve that for Jones.  
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” muttered Dan, slowing the car almost to a stop. Jones looked back across at him.  
“What’s wrong?”  
“Someone’s taken ou- my parking space.”  
Dan only barely managed to catch himself, and he was pretty sure Jones had noticed anyway. He felt his shoulders hunch, instinctively becoming angry and defensive, but to his relief Jones didn’t call him out on it. He liked the man, yeah, but that didn’t mean he was anywhere near ready to admit it. He had a hard-earned reputation for hating everything and everyone. He was damned if he was going to come back after six months and immediately let someone who was almost a total stranger waltz in and mix everything up until he was smiling all the time. The others would think he’d gone soft or something, and then Nathan would really never leave him alone.  
Jones leaned forward to take a better look at what Dan was indicating, peering out of the window. In Dan’s normal spot by the wall sat a gleaming black BMW, probably belonging to the DCI. It looked smugger than any car should. To either side of it were several empty spaces.  
“Damn, so they have. Where else can we go, in this huge, near-empty car park?” quipped Jones. Dan glared at him.  
“That’s not the point. I’m a DI, and there are certain things associated with that. Some of those aren’t great, like being saddled with the stupid smart-arse new guy for six months. Others, including the right to a designated parking space, are actually useful. So I think I’m allowed to complain.”  
Suddenly Dan felt a blast of cold air and heard the passenger door slam shut. He looked across to see Jones walking away, towards the main building, and very abruptly realised what he’d just said.  
“Oh, fuck,” he groaned, slumping forward over the wheel. “Shit. God, I’m such a twat.”  
He’d never meant to insult Jones, not really. It just sort of happened. His own slip-up had made him angry, and the DCI’s stupid car had been the final straw. Most of the time when he hurt people it was because he knew they’d either ignore him or bite back. He hadn’t given himself time to figure Jones out yet, he’d moved too quickly because he’d lost his touch and because the young man had made him drop his guard a little, and now he’d offended him and working with a partner was going to be even less enjoyable than he’d expected it to be. Great.  
For a moment he considered leaving the car where it was and chasing after Jones, possibly to apologise, possibly just to give the younger man the chance to hit him, but there was no point. Jones was probably long gone anyway, and Dan had never been all that great at apologies. For a slightly longer moment he seriously contemplated putting his foot down and smashing into the DCIs smug little BMW a few times, just to make himself feel better. In the end he did neither of those things. He drove home. His shift was nearly over, and while he knew he’d most likely get a bollocking for it from Claire, he couldn’t quite bring himself to care. Maybe in the morning he wouldn’t feel like such a monumental arsehole.  
***  
Arriving at work the next day, feeling a little less like he wanted to ram his head into a wall, Dan managed to avoid Nathan and even grab a takeaway coffee from his favourite café on the way in. He was almost cheery when he reached the office.  
The happiness vanished the moment he entered.  
Paperwork. Dan wondered when he'd reached such a low point that the mere thought of the word made him want to die. There was just so much of it. It crept in by night, or at least that's how he'd always pictured it; he'd get it all finished by the end of the day, even if that meant having to extend his working day to three in the morning on occasion, and yet almost as soon as he arrived his desk was buried under yet another deluge of paper. He even had nightmares, sticky notes pasting themselves to things without warning, sheets of copy paper flying through the gaps under doors, delivering papercuts of such velocity that he'd once woken in a cold sweat, certain he'd lost a finger. That was round about the point he'd realised that he was overworked. None of it even meant anything. It was all memos and reminders of things he could remember perfectly well on his own. Well, maybe 'perfectly' was pushing it a bit. Certainly passably. Before, sure, he'd been good at remembering back then. He'd been one of their best officers. But then came the Robertson case, the sharp decline that had followed, until it had all culminated in six months of paid leave and psych evaluations. Dan was hardly surprised that they didn't trust him. Back on the job for what, a day? Two? He was losing track already. The point was, as soon as he'd set foot in the office he'd set Jones off down the same path. God, he regretted that now. He regretted a lot of things.  
Sighing, Dan lifted his cup to his lips once more and sat down. If he closed his eyes and concentrated he could remind himself that no amount of hope would turn caffeine into alcohol.  
"Dan?"  
He cracked open one eye. Jones hovered awkwardly by the desk, clutching a brown envelope. His lips twitched into a smile.  
"Morning," he continued, glancing at the mountains of paperwork spread across the table. Dan heaved himself upright and hurriedly tried to look busy. Jones chuckled.  
"Is this a bad time?"  
"No! No, not at all. I've just finished all this anyway. What was it you wanted?"  
He was relieved when he saw Jones smile properly, hiding his grin for fear people would see it was genuine. He could empathise with that.  
"I was digging around in some old case files," Jones said, perching on the edge of the table atop a small heap of invites to various New Year’s parties that Dan had been pointedly ignoring. His feet swung a few inches from the floor as he spoke. Dan tried not to find that endearing and leaned back with forced nonchalance.  
"Find anything interesting?"  
"Yeah, actually."  
Dan frowned, pushing his coffee to one side. Jones slid one finger under the flap of the envelope and tipped it, catching the pieces of paper that fell out. He sorted through them briefly, brow furrowed in concentration, until he found the one he was looking for. Satisfied, he turned it towards the taller man. Dan leaned closer to take a look. The picture was faded in that peculiar way that only happens when something has been sealed away for a long time, but it was clear enough. Dan frowned.  
"What am I looking at?"  
"Photos from a kidnapping almost twenty years ago.”  
"Not much to go on, is there?"  
Jones shot him a pointed glance, and Dan gave his best innocent look in response. Wide-eyed and open, with a why-me attitude that was always enhanced by a cigarette dangling from his lower lip, it was a look he felt suited him. He would have said it worked on all the ladies, but that would have required him to have actually spoken to any ladies. Or men, for that matter. Since his parents had disowned him anyway he'd stopped being fussy. He still hadn't gotten lucky in months, but it made him feel a little better to know he had a pool of potential candidates that was slightly wider than most. Not Jones, though. He made it a general rule not to sleep with colleagues.  
 _That's because all your colleagues are either idiots or your sister, ___murmured a small corner of his brain. He told it to shut up and forced himself to focus on the photo rather than the man holding it, who was grinning again. Dan coughed and Jones visibly shook himself, pulling back to the business at hand.  
"Well, yeah, but that's kind of the point. Forensics haven't got back to us yet- I don't think your sister likes me, by the way- but you were there too, you saw the evidence."  
"No I didn't," said Dan, bewildered. Jones smiled and nodded.  
"Exactly. There was nothing there. I mean, I'm no expert, obviously, but surely there would be something? Footprints, maybe even blood if things got out of hand. There’d definitely be rope traces, signs of a struggle, recognisable tire prints. But there was _nothing ___. It's like the guy knew what he was doing. Knew what we would look for. And that's not even the weird part."  
Dan sighed, beginning to feel like he was losing some sense of command over the situation.  
"What's the weird part then?"  
Jones leaned closer, pointing at the background of the photo. Dan peered at it for a few moments before throwing his hands up in defeat.  
"I give up. What are you showing me?"  
"It's the same park."  
Dan squinted ineffectually at the picture again.  
"How can you tell?"  
"Well, for one thing the hills in the background are exactly the same. And also it says so on the back."  
He spun the bit of paper around to show his partner. Sure enough, written on the back in a messy scrawl, were the words "Ditchfield Crescent, June 7th 1988". Dan thumped him on the arm.  
"Ow!"  
"You prick, you had me going there. Don't get all smart-arse on me again."  
Jones laughed, his fringe falling across his sparkling eyes as he looked at Dan. For once the older man didn't feel like he was being mocked; more like he was being included. Which was weird, considering that it had been a long time since anyone bar Nathan had cared enough to try and include him in anything.  
"The look on your face, though," managed Jones between giggles. The red streaks in his hair shone weirdly under the cheap fluorescent lighting. Dan found himself smiling and coughed awkwardly, going to take a sip of his coffee before abruptly realising it was barely more than lukewarm and choking. Jones thumped his back, doing more harm than good. Dan spluttered, hunched over his cup and trying to knock Jones' arm away. After a few undignified minutes he recovered himself.  
"Okay. So what, are you saying that there's a copycat kidnapper?"  
Jones tilted his head, holding eye contact with Dan and swinging his feet a little as he thought.  
"Could be. Or maybe it's the same guy?"  
Dan sat up a little straighter, looking back at his partner with renewed enthusiasm. A hint of excitement shot through his veins, the kind he hadn't felt for at least a year. It wasn't anticipation, not exactly- he wasn't stupid, he knew the risks- but the kind of adrenaline rush usually associated with extreme sports. This was the reason he'd joined the police. The hours were hellish, the paperwork soul-destroying, and the coffee didn't bear thinking about, but the thrill of the chase- the joy of the puzzle, the desperate, mad scramble to the finish that invariably left Dan exhausted, drained, and itching for more- was like a drug. He'd always had his addictions. Everyone did, because their addictions were their distractions. His were simple. At first, rebellion against his parents. As he grew up they changed. Sex. Late nights. Parties. He joined the police and found a natural affinity for solving the puzzle. That one had lasted years. Then there was the most destructive of all his habits- the drink. He was still working on driving that one out. The thrill of the chase coming back to him was an unexpected step in that direction.  
A part of him wondered what Jones' addictions were.  
"Okay. If we say for a moment that this person is a serial kidnapper," he mused aloud, "how can you prove it? There were twenty years between the crimes."  
Jones grinned.  
"Were there, though?"  
He paused for a moment as though waiting for Dan to catch up with his line of thought. Dan tried, he really did, but it was still too early in the morning for his brain to perform anything more than the basic tasks of making coffee. Eventually he shook his head.  
"Nope, you've lost me again. Small words, please, Jones. It's early."  
Jones nodded.  
"Alright. And before you tell me this is stupid, remember that there's nothing we can do until forensics get back to us anyway."  
Dan felt a headache building behind his eyes and took a deep breath. Jones hopped down from the desk and grinned.  
"Okay. So. Let's go and look at the old cases. You've got boxes and boxes of evidence down in the basement, there's bound to be something."  
“No.”  
“Oh, come on!”  
The look Jones gave him was a perfect “are we nearly there yet?” face- equal parts exasperation and satisfaction at the knowledge that the poor parents were bound to give in sooner or later. Dan resisted for all of five seconds before realising that the alternative was actually answering some of the brainless memos cluttering his desk. He let the silence hang in the air for a little longer before abruptly standing up.  
“Alright.”  
Jones’ face split instantly into a broad grin.  
“Seriously? Genius! I’ve always wanted to go through old evidence.”  
Dan smiled, steering his excited colleague towards the doors.  
“You’re going to be very disappointed.”  
They got into the rattling lift descended slowly to the basement, but even the smell of urine and regret wasn’t enough to deter Jones’ enthusiasm.  
“Nah, no way. There must be hundreds of things down there, and some of them aren’t even solved! How can you not think that’s exciting? So many stories!”  
Dan didn’t reply, just smiled and looked away. He was trying not to completely disillusion the younger man, but he wasn’t so hesitant about letting him discover the downsides for himself. This was still police work, after all.  
They juddered to a halt somewhere below ground. That much was obvious even without the tiny flashing button reading “basement”- the flickering strip lighting and faint scent of mould were unmistakeable. Lining the room were metal shelves, and almost every inch of available space was taken up by battered cardboard boxes. In one corner sat a forlorn looking computer and a chair that looked as if one good swivel would make it fall apart.  
“Nice place, isn’t it?” said Dan sarcastically. He turned around, already preparing himself for Jones’ inevitable disappointment.  
“This is genius!”  
“What?”  
It was a rare occurrence that left Dan Ashcroft speechless. As far as he could remember it had only happened about twice in the past three years. Jones’ impossibly enthusiastic reaction brought that total up to three. He stared incredulously at him.  
“Are you literally made of sunshine?” he managed eventually. Jones laughed and took a sweeping bow, sending up a swirl of dust that had them both coughing within seconds. Dan doubled over and Jones clutched at his sleeve, pulling his own shirt up over his nose as a sort of rudimentary gas mask. When eventually the dust settled Dan carefully detached Jones from his sleeve and pointed him towards a shelf near the back of the room.  
“Try over there, they’re the unsolved ones. Look for anything in the area related to kidnappings. I’ll see if there’s anything in the system from other divisions. Maybe our guy likes to shop around.”  
“Got it,” said Jones, hurrying over to the shelf. Dan turned on the ancient computer. The sound of frantically whirring electronics mixed with the muffled thumps and swearing coming from the back of the room, where Jones was juggling boxes. Soon he reappeared, covered in dust, carrying a battered brown shoebox.  
“This is all I could find. It’s the rest of the evidence from that case I told you about, from the same park.”  
Dan leaned back cautiously in the swivel chair, putting his hands behind his head.  
“So what is there?”  
Jones put the box down and pulled the lid off, tossing it to one side and coughing at the dust it sent up. Dan shifted in the chair and winced as something clattered to the floor. Very slowly he stood up, deciding not to disturb it any more.  
“Don’t you people ever clean down here?” asked Jones. Dan shrugged.  
“Search me. Most of us don’t spend our time poking around in decades-old case files. I know it’s hard to believe, this part of town, but we don’t actually get all that many serial killers.”  
“Kidnappers,” corrected Jones absently, peering at a sheet of paper.  
“Alright, serial kidnappers then. We don’t see them often. Or ever, actually. What is that?”  
Jones passed him the sheet of paper. He skimmed over it quickly, picking out the key points. It was an incident report dated June 7th, 1988, the same as the photos. Katherine Wallace, 14 years old, had been walking home from school by herself, having been kept behind for detention. When she still wasn’t home almost three hours later the police were called. A search went out, ‘missing’ posters all around the street, but she was never found. The police investigated the route she usually took home. There were no witnesses except a couple of very young children in the park, and no evidence except from a blood-stained knife found in the woods near the park. The investigating officer at the time, DC Joshua Malcolm, had tried to get fingerprints from it but none could be recovered. A footnote had been added, dated the 12th of November the same year, saying that Katherine had been officially ruled missing, presumed dead. The case was quietly closed. There was no fuss, no public outcry- she was just another city troublemaker, swept under the rug like all the others.  
“So this is it? How do we know she didn’t just run off?” asked Dan. Jones looked at him.  
“How d’you mean?”  
“Well she was known for causing trouble, staying out late and so on. Maybe she just ran off. There’s nothing to really prove she was kidnapped, after all.”  
Jones reached into the box and pulled out a plastic bag with a knife in it.  
“Well, there is this. That’s got to prove something, surely.”  
Dan winced when he saw the knife, catching the light as it swung from Jones’ hand. It was nothing unusual- just a kitchen knife, could have come from anywhere- but the blade was serrated and crusted with what could only be twenty-year-old dried blood.  
“Point taken.”  
Jones inclined his head slightly and went to put the knife back, but Dan put a hand on his arm to stop him.  
“Wait. 1988… that was before DNA testing, right?”  
Jones slowly put the knife down on the table, thinking.  
“As far as I remember it was first used in ’87, but only in special cases. High-profile.”  
Their eyes met, understanding passing between them. Police telepathy, Dan had always called it. The spark of inspiration that could be shared without speaking. Jones held his gaze, speaking slowly.  
“The technology would still be fairly new-”  
“-not the kind of thing you’d use for a teenage runaway-” Dan cut in. Jones nodded, still looking at him, speaking faster now. Words bounced between them, tumbling out like a waterfall.  
“-most likely they’d only check for fingerprints-”  
“-the report said none were found, but now-”  
“-DNA testing being so much more common-”  
“-there’s only a slim chance, but it’s worth a shot, right?” finished Dan, adrenaline fizzing through him again. Jones looked positively overjoyed.  
“Okay. So, uh, I’ll take the knife up to forensics? And you could maybe try putting Katherine’s name through the computer, find out where she used to live. She might still have family there, someone we could talk to.”  
“Good idea.”  
Jones grinned.  
“Brilliant. See, I told you this was a good idea. Oh, while I’m away, do you want a coffee? I could get you something.”  
Dan nodded.  
“That’d be great, thanks. Just a black coffee, strong as you can make it.”  
Jones nodded his acknowledgement and made for the door. Dan called him back.  
“You might want to sort your hair,” he said with a tiny smile. “You look like you’ve aged about fifty years.”  
The younger man laughed, running his hands through his hair and shaking his head a few times in an attempt to remove the worst of the dust. Dan couldn’t help but grin as he watched. Jones’ eyes were shining when he looked back up.  
“Better?”  
“Yeah. Now go on, I need that coffee. Oh, and the forensics results. Mostly coffee though.”  
Jones shook his head and jogged from the room. Dan smiled after him for a second, then realised what he was doing and dragged his gaze back to the computer, grateful that nobody was around to see that.  
“Okay,” he muttered to himself. “Where did you live then, Miss Wallace?”  
He typed her name into the database, pacing the room as he waited for the ancient computer to load the results. After what felt like an eternity it gave a faint, tortured bleep. Without really paying attention, just checking it was the same girl, he hit print. Dan found he always worked better on paper. The prehistoric equipment gave a few loud crunches in protest but eventually did as he asked and spat out a few pages of information. Sitting down on the desk- he didn’t trust that chair- Dan began to read.  
The first thing he realised was that Katherine hadn’t lived with her parents. The house she stayed in was a foster home, where she’d lived all her life. Attached to this information was a list of the other children living there at the time of her abduction, complete with grainy thumbnail photos. Dan skimmed through the names, not really paying attention, then did a double-take and looked back. One boy looked oddly familiar. He searched for the name attached to the photograph but the printer seemed to have given up and half of the writing was obscured with a huge black smear of ink. All he could make out was “Jones”.  
 _I used to live near here…_  
The door opened from across the room and Dan hurriedly folded the list away, shoving it in his pocket before turning around. Jones looked quizzically at him. His hair and suit were still smeared with grey dust, and he was carrying two takeaway cups.  
“You alright?” he asked, passing Dan one of the cups. He took a sip of the coffee and looked up at his partner in surprise.  
“That’s good coffee. Did you go to the café across the street?”  
“Yeah. That instant stuff upstairs is horrible, I figured you’d like this better.”  
“That’s… oddly considerate of you. Do you want me to pay you back for this?”  
He started to dig in his pocket for his wallet, but Jones waved him away.  
“Nah, ‘course not. We’re partners, right? Besides, it’s nothing. No, honest, put that away. An’ I gave that old knife to your sister. She definitely doesn’t like me.”  
Feeling a little self-conscious, Dan slipped his wallet back into his jacket. He always felt bad accepting things from people, especially as he didn’t have the money to pay them back most of the time. Though that wasn’t so much a problem any more, what with the whole ‘staying sober’ thing. Jones popped the lid from his own drink, taking a sip, and Dan laughed.  
“Is that a hot chocolate?”  
“Yeah!” replied Jones, whipped cream decorating his top lip as he beamed. “I was gonna get a coffee, but they put cream and marshmallows in for free. Couldn’t resist.”  
He grinned and took another drink.  
“Can we get out of here then?” he added, almost as an afterthought. “I’d rather go over the evidence back in the real world.”  
Dan nodded and gathered up the pieces of paper, putting them back in the evidence box. Just before they reached the door he stopped and looked at Jones, who still had cream on his face.  
“Oh, by the way, you’ve…”  
He trailed off, unsure how to continue. Jones looked at him expectantly.  
“Yeah?”  
“There’s cream…”  
He indicated in the vague direction of his own mouth. Jones seemed to understand.  
“Shit, where?”  
He lifted a hand to his mouth, looking to Dan for guidance. Impulsively, not sure what else there was he could do, Dan stepped in and wiped the foam away with a quick brush of his thumb. Jones giggled, and Dan looked away awkwardly.  
“Sorry.”  
“What are you sorry for? You got rid of the cream, didn’t you?”  
“Well, yeah. But-”  
“No harm done then.”  
Dan couldn’t quite meet Jones’ eyes, but something in his chest seemed to loosen. So Jones wasn’t going to yell at him every time he did something stupid. That was good to know, since stupid things- especially when it came to social skills- were more or less Dan’s speciality. They waited for the lift in companionable silence, not needing to say anything, and for a moment Dan could forget the piece of paper that felt like a dead weight in his pocket.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure why I persist in putting this at the end of every chapter, but the characters still aren't mine. Also many thanks to everyone who reads this, comments on it, leaves kudos- you're all brilliant.


	4. Rebel, Rebel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ended up being far longer than I thought it would be, though admittedly with far fewer plot holes. Enjoy :)

Dan sat in the tiny, uncomfortable chair and fidgeted. He never thought of himself as the sort of person who fidgeted, tending to picture himself as calm and collected, but in reality it only took a few minutes of silence before he was twitching nervously, tapping on the table, leg shaking. He just couldn’t bear it. Being left alone with his own thoughts had never worked out too well for him.  
He was trying not to fidget, because he refused to let the DCI intimidate him. It was classic scare tactics, used by everyone from head teachers to politicians. Someone comes to you with something important on their mind? Make them wait outside, see how determined they are after fifteen minutes of nervous reconsidering.  
Right on cue the door opened and the DCI walked in.  
“So sorry to keep you waiting,” he said, in that horrible oily voice of his.  
“No problem,” lied Dan. “Listen, I really need to talk to you about this case.”  
“And what case might that be?” the DCI asked, sitting down behind his desk and looking down his nose at Dan. “My apologies. I’m not sure what you were used to with your old DCI, but I haven’t got time to memorise the caseload of every detective in here, ready to answer their every whim. I do have responsibilities, you know.”  
Suppressing the urge to punch him, Dan nodded. He took a deep breath, forcing himself to crawl for a while. It was for the greater good. Carefully, choosing his words carefully to make sure he sounded like he knew what he was doing, he explained.  
“Yes, I know. Sorry. Jones and I are working on that kidnapping case. Ditchfield Crescent? But over the course of our, our initial research I have discovered that Jones has a, uh, personal connection to the case. I would like to request, therefore, that he is removed from it.”  
That sounded reasonable, he thought, folding his hands in his lap to try and stop them from moving. He was pretty sure he was coming across as professional, like someone who knew the rules and wanted to stick to them; in short, like a proper officer as opposed to someone who was going soft and didn’t want to see his friend get hurt. It was stupid of him, he knew, but Jones was still new on the job, and what with the way he acted he was practically just a kid. Dan would never be able to forgive himself if the younger man got hurt on their first case. Opposite him, the DCI shook his head.  
“Dan, I appreciate your concern, and I’m sure Jones would too, but I happen to know that he was once connected to the area and I also know that it will not be an issue. It’s up to him whether or not to divulge the details, but rest assured there will be no problem.”  
Dan looked up at his boss, frowning, unable to shake the knot of worry in his stomach.  
“But the regulations say-”  
“Dan.”  
Suddenly the DCI seemed less like a pen-pushing twat and became commanding, even threatening. He seemed bigger somehow, more focused, and a lot less oily. Dan shrank back into his seat, bewildered.  
“You leave the regulations to me, Mr Ashcroft, and go and do your job. Now.”  
Dan stood up slowly, edging towards the door without looking away from the DCI, who paid him no attention. A moment later his confidence snapped. He ran, stumbling backwards out of the door and nearly falling over. Nathan cheered.  
“Alright, Preach! Fuckin’ mental, ain’t you?”  
Dan gritted his teeth and made his way over to his desk, where he’d left Jones with the box of paperwork. The younger man- who still had grey dust staining his hair- looked up at him with concern.  
“You alright, mate?”  
“Fine,” he growled, sitting down. Jones peered at him with concern but, to Dan’s relief, didn’t press him further. Instead he rummaged in his bag. Dan heard the clink of what sounded like cans, and for a moment he worried before remembering that Jones was the kind of guy who could probably get high on cherryade, and who was too new to have reached the point of sneaking alcohol into work. After a minute Jones pulled out his notebook, the battered old cardboard one Dan had noticed earlier.  
“Okay. Has Claire got back to you yet?” he asked. Dan shook his head, noticing paint on Jones’ fingers. Had that been there earlier? He wasn’t sure.  
“No. I tried texting her, but she said it’d take at least another few hours until they could tell us anything from the scene.”  
Jones nodded slowly, idly tracing the drawings on the notebook with long, paint-stained fingers. Dan watched. He couldn’t tell what the pictures were, not really. They were… faces, maybe, and weird creatures, all wrapped up and tangled together.  
“Did you ask her about the knife?”  
Dan chuckled.  
“Yeah.”  
Jones smirked, the corners of his mouth tugging up just slightly. He knew already what the answer was going to be, but his eyes flickered up to meet Dan’s anyway. Peering up from beneath his long fringe, his eyes laughing, Dan wondered again why he was here.  
Leaning back in his chair and looking up at the ceiling in an attempt to distract himself from the affection he was beginning to feel for his colleague, he allowed himself to grin.  
“I believe the exact words she used were ‘I can’t believe you were fucking serious about that. No, we haven’t analysed your bloody miracle knife yet. Fuck off.’”  
Jones laughed, drawing a couple of strange looks from the other people in the office.  
“Brilliant. She’s a right laugh, isn’t she, your sister? She hates me. Told me I was too cheerful to be a detective. Then she asked if I was gonna be a good influence on you and laughed me out of the room when I said I’d try.”  
Dan snorted, shaking his head and tugging the box of evidence across the desk. He took out the reports he’d found earlier, looking across at Jones.  
“You writing this down?”  
“Yeah. Thought it would be helpful.”  
Dan nodded encouragingly.  
“Okay. There’s no right or wrong way to put your evidence together- some people like writing, some like putting it up on a board or drawing it out. If notes work for you then notes work for you, but don’t think you have to.”  
Jones nodded slowly, taking it in. Sorting through the papers until he found the right files, he began to read out key points. Jones took notes diligently, occasionally linking them up with lines or arrows. There wasn’t much to go on, Dan had to admit. They wrote down the name of the park, and the girl that was kidnapped twenty years previously, just in case they were important. At one point Dan called Pingu over, much to Nathan’s inexplicable amusement, and told him to look over the phone calls they’d received in the last 24 hours. He wanted to know if the missing girl’s parents had phoned in to report her disappearance. Poor sods. He hated having to talk to families in cases like this.  
The day was nearly over by the time they finished poring over the box of evidence. Dan had watched Jones’ face carefully when he brought up the foster home, but his expression didn’t change. He’d simply put the name and owners into the computer and quietly told him that the previous owners had moved out several years previously and he couldn’t find a new address.  
“So now what?” asked Dan eventually. Jones twirled his hair around a pencil absent-mindedly.  
“You should try sending an email out, see if there’s anyone else been kidnapped. That way we’d know if there was a twenty-year gap or not. Might be helpful.”  
“What do you want me to say? ‘Has anyone been kidnapped or gone missing in the last twenty years’? Because sending that out over the whole of England really wouldn’t get us anywhere.”  
A smile flickered across Jones’ face, just briefly, tugging his lips upwards. He looked sleepy. Dan couldn’t blame him, really. It had been a long day, and with nothing but paperwork. They hadn’t even had time to take coffee breaks. His heavy-lidded eyes met Dan’s.  
“Try asking them for missing persons or kidnappings in the last twenty years. Victims female aged between fourteen and… seventeen, maybe. Probably had some previous convictions, but minor stuff. Shoplifting and things.”  
Dan frowned, and Jones huffed out the ghost of a laugh at his confusion. He stared the younger man down for a moment before relenting.  
“I give up. Why?”  
Jones giggled and squirmed slightly to try and stop himself from sliding down the chair. After a moment he managed to pull himself together and form an answer.  
“Well, it’s easy, isn’t it? We know from the two he’s taken so far that he goes for teenage girls, and if he is a serial attacker then he probably sticks to that. Fourteen to seventeen is the most likely age group, ‘cause he takes them on the way home from school. We know he’s smart, so he probably picks his victims out carefully. If he goes for known troublemakers then the police- us, I guess- would probably assume that they were runaways. Their cases would be dropped faster. It’s the logical choice.”  
After a minute or so of stunned silence Dan realised his mouth was hanging open.  
“How… How did you know that?” he asked eventually. Jones grinned, acting as though he was offended.  
“Hey! I’m smart, ain’t I? I know I talk like the Artful Dodger, but that doesn’t mean I’m not pretty sharp as well.”  
Dan laughed, bowing his head for a moment before opening up a new email window. As he punched in the suggestions Jones had given him he heard someone walking over.  
“Oh, hey Pingu,” said Jones with a smile, spinning around in his chair.  
“Um… hello,” replied Pingu, characteristically shy. He didn’t seem to know what to make of Jones, and had a tendency to flutter awkwardly around him. He turned to Dan.  
“I found a call from early this morning. Parents on Larch Street reporting their 15-year-old daughter missing. The mother says she waited this long because her daughter had been known to stay out with friends at night, but when she didn’t get back they got worried.”  
He looked nervously between the two officers.  
“Is that what you were looking for?”  
Dan looked at Jones.  
“It fits the description you came up with.”  
Jones nodded, the end of the pencil resting against his lower lip.  
“An’ Larch Street is just round the corner from the park. It makes sense she’d cut through on her way back from school.”  
Dan stood and stretched, checking his watch.  
“It’s late, but we should really go and talk to them.”  
“Oh, I’ll do that.”  
He looked at Jones in surprise, pausing halfway through reaching for his jacket.  
“What?”  
The younger man shrugged and hopped to his feet, shaking away any traces of tiredness. He looked alert again, and eager to prove himself. Dan knew from experience that was a dangerous route to go down, but couldn’t figure out how to tell Jones that.  
“I’ll do it. It’s on my bus route home anyway, and I know the area. Like I told you, I used to live near there.”  
“Are you sure? No, Jones, I’ll come. I can give you a lift home while we go.”  
For a moment Jones seemed to curl away, growing defensive, but then he relaxed and nodded. As he slipped his notebook back into his bag and pulled on his jacket he called back to Pingu.  
“Could you get us a printout of their names and address?”  
Pingu nodded hurriedly, scurrying off to his desk. Nathan shouted something unintelligible at him by way of greeting, and Jones snorted.  
“I don’t get people like him,” he said to Dan, watching the two men across the room. “They think they’re rebelling, but they’re only doing it because everyone is. Ironic, really. If you were really a rebel you wouldn’t need to ask other people if you were doing it properly.”  
Dan smirked, the same thought having crossed his mind a thousand times before.  
“Exactly. And you know what the worst bit is?”  
Jones turned to face him, an odd kind of intensity in his eyes. For a moment Dan was caught off-guard.  
“What?”  
“They think we’re like them. I tell them I hate them, but that’s ‘cool’ because it’s cool to hate them. They see you, all colours and badges, and think you’re following their fashion.”  
“How d’you know I’m not?” asked Jones, smiling teasingly and running the tip of his tongue almost absent-mindedly across his lip. Dan swallowed, suddenly all too aware of how much he might have just revealed. Deciding there was nothing really to lose, he answered anyway.  
“Because you create things. Those patches are actually stitched on, not just ready-added like half of theirs. Your drawings, too, on the notebook- there’s no fashion in those, they’re just your art. The Idiots just take, they don’t give back.”  
He stopped, biting back the last sentence before his mouth could properly betray him. Lingering on the tip of his tongue, still begging to be said, were the words “You are what they could only ever pretend to be”. He was pretty sure that if he’d said that the entire office would assume they were bumming before the day was out. The worst part- the part that he denied even to himself- was that he actually wouldn’t mind. Jones wasn’t bad looking, his features unusual but somehow attractive, and heaven knows Dan had little enough dignity left that he didn’t care half as much as he used to about being with a man. But there was something holding him back, stopping him from making a move. Maybe it was the fact that Jones was so new there, or that his six months away were too fresh in his mind. Maybe, and this was the bit that was nagging at him, he actually cared about him.  
Jones looked at him in surprise, smiling broadly. Dan could feel himself blushing and looked down, inspecting his sleeve for imaginary lint and coughing to hide his embarrassment. Several seconds ticked by, agonisingly slow, then he felt someone nudge his elbow gently.  
“Thanks, Dan,” said Jones quietly. The words were innocuous enough, but there was something buried beneath them that Dan couldn’t quite place. He was saved from embarrassing himself any further by Pingu’s return. He held out a sheet of paper which Jones plucked from his hand with a grin and a friendly thump on the shoulder.  
“Cheers, Pingu, you’re a star,” he said. “Coming?” he added, looking back at Dan, who nodded and followed him out through the doors and down the stairs to the car park. He watched Jones as they walked. The young man was obviously growing more confident, more sure of his way around the building and his place in CID, and it showed in the way he walked and the jokes he would occasionally fire across at Dan. He was still very much the new kid, but he was finding his feet. Dan felt weirdly proud of that.  
The lights in the car park hadn’t yet turned on when they arrived. Dan hated going home at this time- it was too light for him to really have to use the headlights, but too dark for him to be totally confident in driving without them. It unsettled him slightly. Beside him, sitting in the passenger seat with his knees tucked up to his chest, Jones seemed nervous as well. Dan wanted to ask him if everything was okay, but after his little speech earlier he found he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it. So he stayed quiet, and carefully reversed out of the parking space before driving to the address Pingu had given them. There were no CDs this time, although at one point he caught Jones quietly singing ‘Pinhead’ under his breath. He didn’t mention it, simply smiled to himself.  
It didn’t take long for them to arrive at the house. Dan got out of the car first, shivering as the cold breeze hit him. There was a bitter chill in the air. Jones joined him moments later, looking expectantly around.  
“Which house is it?” he asked. Dan checked the sheet of paper.  
“This one.”  
They crossed the street and knocked at the door. It seemed like a nice place. The garden was small and the soil obviously wasn’t good for much but someone had taken the time to put flowerpots everywhere and filled them with flowers in every shape and colour. Clearly somebody in the family loved gardening. He heard a quiet intake of breath and turned to see Jones, clearly upset about something. His eyes shone as though he was keeping back tears and he was worrying his lower lip between his teeth. Something about the sight made Dan’s chest constrict slightly and his hand jerked slightly, like he was going to put a hand on Jones’ arm but decided against it at the last second.  
“You alright?” he asked him quietly, but before Jones could answer the door swung open. A dark-haired man stood inside, in his mid-forties by the look of him. He ran an anxious hand through his hair and pushed his glasses up his nose.  
“Can I help you?” he asked them nervously. Dan reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his ID, handing it over for the man to look at.  
“We’re with CID. You called about a missing child this morning?”  
“You’re the police? Yes, we- perhaps you should come inside.”  
He stood to one side and gestured for them to enter the house, leading them through to the living room. A woman, presumably his wife, was sitting in an armchair in one corner of the room. She looked up when they entered.  
“Matt? Who is it?”  
The man- Matt- gestured vaguely towards Dan and Jones.  
“They’re with the police. Mr Ashcroft and Mr, um…”  
He trailed of, looking at them.  
“Jones,” said Jones, reaching out to shake his hand. “Yes, that’s right. We’re here to take a look into your daughter’s case.”  
Dan stepped in. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Jones, but he wanted to make sure this was handled correctly.  
“You phoned in this morning to say that your daughter didn’t come home last night, is that correct?” he said, taking out his notebook. The woman in the chair nodded.  
“That’s right. Her… her name is Verity.”  
“Thank you, Mrs-?”  
“Castle. Emily Castle.”  
“Can I ask you a few more questions?”  
She nodded, gesturing to the sofa.  
“Of course. Sit down, please.”  
Dan sat down, feeling the sofa cushions dip as Jones joined him. He tried not to notice the fact that Jones’ arm was pressed up against his side and looked back down at his notes.  
“Why did you wait until this morning to call us?”  
Emily sighed.  
“Verity has a… a history, I suppose, of staying out late. She’ll sometimes just stay with her friends instead of coming home. When she still hadn’t contacted us by morning, we phoned her. It didn’t even ring, just told us the number was unavailable. That’s when we called you.”  
Dan nodded, noting this down.  
“Do you know of anyone who might want to harm Verity?”  
Emily looked scared, and Matt sat on the arm of the chair beside her. Dan shook his head apologetically.  
“I’m so sorry, Mr and Mrs Castle. I know it’s difficult. But the more you can tell us, even if it’s just the slightest thing, the easier it will be for us to get her home to you.”  
Matt answered, pushing his glasses back again.  
“Nobody. She’s popular, she’s doing well enough in school- not top of her class, though I’m sure she could be if she tried that bit harder. People like her.”  
“We’ve got records of previous charges against her for shoplifting.”  
It had been one of the things Pingu had put on the sheet for them. Matt sighed deeply, pushing a hand through his hair.  
“She thought it was a joke. We told her not to, but she didn’t always listen. She’s stopped now, though. It’s been months since there’s been any real trouble. I think it’s the exams- she’s having to work hard.”  
Dan gave them a look of sympathy. He found it was the best way to make people like him, even if he couldn’t really relate to what they were experiencing.  
“I understand. If you think of anyone- anyone at all- just let us know. Here’s my card, call me if you need to. Oh, and one last thing. Would it be possible for us to have a recent picture of Verity?”  
“Of course.”  
Matt dug in his pocket for his wallet and pulled out a small photograph, which he handed to Dan. It showed a teenage girl smiling cheekily at the camera, purple streaks in her long hair. Dan looked at it for a moment before handing it to Jones.  
“Thank you. We’ll do everything we can.”  
With a final earnest smile and shake of Matt’s hand he stood and let the man lead them out. The door closed behind them and Dan turned to look at his colleague. Jones was looking down at the photo, running his thumb carefully across it. He looked deeply sad, but shook it off almost immediately.  
“Is this it, then?” he said, looking up at Dan with a slightly forced smile. “See you tomorrow? Oh, and you’d better take this. Evidence.”  
He passed Dan the photo and stepped away.  
“Where are you going? I’ll give you a lift.”  
“Nah, it’s not far. I’ll walk.”  
Dan frowned, looking at him.  
“You sure? I’ll take you, it’s no trouble.”  
Jones laughed, walking backwards with his hands in his pockets. For a moment he was every cool, unattainable love interest in every cheesy teen film that Dan would never admit to having watched when he was younger.  
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said with a grin, and then he was walking away.  
Dan absolutely didn’t stare after him until he was out of sight.


	5. Starman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dan gets a call at 2am- another kidnapping.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know why exactly, but I had an awful lot of fun writing this chapter. And just wait until the next one- dramatic backstory chapter time! That one, I admit, I have been rather looking forward to. But anyway, that's enough teasers. Read this one.  
> Oh, and just a quick note- I'm back at school now, and it's prelim season, so I might update a little slower for a couple of weeks. I'll try my best to keep this up- I love it, I'm so invested in writing this that I'll probably end up using it as a reward for studying- but yeah. Exams suck, basically, is the message I'm trying to get across.

The shrill, tinny ringing of his phone made it instantly on to Dan’s list of least favourite things when it woke him that night. It was still dark, though to be fair it was the middle of winter in England and would probably be dark for at least another month. He rolled over with a groan and flailed a hand in the general direction of his bedside table, grabbing at the phone and stabbing aimlessly at it until the ringing stopped. He squinted against the near-blinding light of the screen and checked the caller ID. It was the station. Muttering curses under his breath, he put it to his ear.  
“What is it?” he growled. The voice of the night-shift receptionist greeted him, and he screwed his eyes shut with a sigh. There were very few people in the world he hated more than the night receptionist. She was at least a million years old and had possibly the most patronising voice of anyone in the known universe, to the extent that Dan could swear she amped it up when she was talking to him just to annoy him. They’d developed a sort of vendetta years previously and it showed no signs of going away any time soon.  
“Don’t you get shirty with me, young man. I’ve been told to let you know that you need to get to the park as soon as possible.”  
Dan sat up carefully, rubbing sleep from his eyes.  
“What’s happened?”  
“Another kidnapping. Oh, and your young man, Jones-”  
“He’s not my ‘young man’,” muttered Dan. On the other end of the line the receptionist tutted.  
“Well, I don’t know what they’re calling it these days. I’ve got nothing against it, myself, I’m sure it’s your own business. Anyway, he isn’t answering his phone so you need to pick him up on your way over. He lives down on Brook Street, number 72. Though you’d know, of course.”  
She cackled and hung up the phone, leaving Dan bewildered and angry. Sighing, he hauled himself out of bed. His whole body ached and protested as he stood up. He risked a glance in the mirror as he flicked the lights on. His hair was a mess, but he’d looked far worse. After a moment he reluctantly ran a hand across his hair to smooth it and pulled on his shirt and trousers from the day before. God, he was tired. Maybe he’d be able to grab a coffee on the way to the scene. He knew a couple of places that would still be open.  
Grabbing a woollen scarf and his warmest jacket- which was, admittedly, not very warm, but still better than nothing- he made his way down to the street where the car was parked. He sat down, putting a CD in without bothering to check what it was. He just wanted some noise to wake him up. After a moment he heard the familiar intro, each beat like a kick to the chest, as the Clash began to sing. He smiled grudgingly, nodding along and nudging the volume higher.  
It wasn’t long before he arrived on Jones’ street, driving slowly until he reached number 72. After parking outside he walked over to the house, pausing a few feet from the door. Coming from inside the house he could hear music, loud music, like someone was having a party except no lights were on. He cautiously approached the door, suddenly worried he’d got the wrong address, but as he got closer he saw the number 72 spray-painted on the wood with clear, bold lines. Underneath somebody had written “House of Jones”. A smile crossed Dan’s face as he knocked, rocking slightly on his heels as he waited for an answer. There was a pause, then the loud music faded slowly out and muffled footsteps approached the door. He heard a faint curse and the sound of a bolt being drawn back, and then the door opened.  
“Look, I already told you that I’m not turning down the music until you train your fucking- oh.”  
Jones stood awkwardly in the doorway, staring at him in surprise. A flush of embarrassment crept into his pale cheeks and Dan suddenly realised that the younger man was wearing only an old sleeveless t-shirt and his boxers, with his hair all messed up and sticking out at odd angles. He coughed apologetically and looked down at the pavement beneath his feet, trying to ignore the fact that Jones actually looked really good like that.  
“The station called,” he muttered. “There’s been another kidnapping. I was told to come and pick you up. Sorry about the timing, but it happens sometimes. Um. Shall I-?”  
He jerked a thumb back in the direction of the car, turning to go, but Jones shook his head.  
“No, it’s- it’s alright. Come in?”  
He stood back to let Dan past. He stepped inside, trying to look around without it seeming weird. He hadn’t really thought about what Jones’ house would look like, but had sort of imagined it as being much like the man himself; appearing chaotic at first, full of colour, yet somehow structured and oddly welcoming. He wasn’t disappointed. There were several large posters on the walls, one of which appeared to have a picture of Jones on it, and two sofas. In one corner sat what looked like professional DJ equipment. Music was still coming from it, and Jones hurried over to switch it off.  
“I wanted to be a DJ in college,” he said, grinning sheepishly at Dan. “Never took it professional, but it passed the time and paid the bills. Still play a bit when I can’t sleep.”  
“I gather there are a few critics?”  
Jones nodded, rubbing the back of his neck. He was clearly embarrassed.  
“Yeah. Sorry about that. The bloke across the road, he hates it, an’ he’s got this dog that’ll have the backside out of your trousers if you give it half a chance. We don’t exactly get on.”  
Dan laughed, kicking at the carpet. Jones seemed to snap to attention, blinking sleep from his eyes.  
“Right. I’ll, uh, go and get changed. The kitchen’s through there, help yourself to toast or coffee or whatever. I think there’s some ready, actually. I don’t sleep too good so I was gonna get something to eat before I tried actually, you know, going to bed. But you can have it, if you want.”  
He was talking quickly, and blushed when Dan chuckled. Jones shook his head and hurried from the room as Dan walked through into the small kitchen. True to his word, the kettle had obviously just boiled. A jar of instant coffee and a black mug sat next to it. Dan carefully looked through the cupboards until he found another one and began to make two mugs of coffee. As he did so, he looked around. It reminded him of the flat he’d lived in as a student, though admittedly his current one wasn’t much better. The cupboards weren’t empty, but there wasn’t a lot there. Rice, soup, lots of bread and biscuits; easy foods that were quick to make and to eat. It seemed like Jones didn’t have much money, and Dan found himself wondering how much the rent on this place was. Jones reappeared before he could get too wrapped up in his thoughts, and Dan looked up with a start.  
“I didn’t know how you take yours,” he said, slightly apologetic, nodding towards the kettle. Jones walked over with a smile. He was wearing dark jeans and a blue shirt, not exactly formal but enough to pass as a responsible adult.  
“That’s alright. I like it with milk, plenty of sugar,” he said. “For future reference.”  
“I’ll be sure to remember.”  
Jones took the black mug and quickly poured himself a coffee. As the hot liquid hit it the sides of the cup began to change colour, the iconic album art for Dark Side of the Moon fading slowly into view. Dan laughed quietly and Jones grinned.  
“Good, isn’t it? Bought it last year.”  
Nodding, Dan took a sip of his coffee. Silence fell over them, strangely peaceful, but it was shattered a moment later when the toaster finished, making both men jump. Dan found himself struggling not to laugh at the absurdity of it all, his heart hammering in his chest. Jones giggled.  
“Fuck, I’d forgotten that. Do you want any? I’ve kind of gone off the idea.”  
Dan shook his head, remembering why he was actually there.  
“We should really be going.”  
Jones murmured something in agreement, putting his mug down so he could pick up his jacket from where it had been hung on the back of a chair. Dan took another drink of coffee, looking at him quizzically, and the younger man’s fringe flopped over his eyes as he tugged self-consciously at the sleeves.  
“What? Don’t like it?” he asked. Dan shook his head.  
“No, it’s not that. Are you not freezing in that, though? It’s the middle of the night. We live in London. How can you go out in that without dying?”  
Jones smiled, running a hand through his hair and pushing it back from his forehead a little.  
“Nah, I’ll live. Come on. You can bring that if you want,” he added, gesturing towards Dan’s mug. Dan drained the last of the coffee and put the mug in the sink. Jones grinned.  
“I should probably know by now that you’re like a coffee-drinking machine, shouldn’t I,” he joked, walking towards the door. Dan left first, pausing to wait on Jones as he locked up. He ran a hand fondly over the sign on the door proclaiming it the House of Jones, glancing over at Dan.  
“Remember how I was telling you about wanting to be a DJ? Yeah, I had a party a few years back and this guy crashed the place, got pissed, started painting on the walls. I kicked him out eventually, but I kind of like this.”  
Dan smiled faintly as Jones walked over and fell into step beside him. As they got into the car he started talking again, every word sounding like he was on the edge of giggling.  
“What would you even do with a coffee-drinking machine? What use would it have?”  
Dan shot him a bemused look, and Jones grinned and kept going.  
“You’d give it a drink, it’d go right through it! Then everything would be all wrong, sparks everywhere, coffee on the floor, and you’d have a broken robot. It’d be useless.”  
He kept it up for the whole journey. Dan stopped processing what he was saying after a while, just enjoying the sound of the words washing over him. Jones seemed to have an endless supply of things to talk about, from concerts he’d seen to whether or not fish have their own language, and his enthusiasm never faltered. It occurred to Dan that he’d never encountered anyone remotely like Jones before, but he liked it. It was a refreshingly original change of pace given that he was so used to being surrounded with purposefully stupid copycats. Jones was smart, and possibly a little bit mad, but he was good company. It felt like almost no time at all had passed until they arrived at the park.  
“What’s going on?” asked Dan as soon as they’d stopped the car, stepping sharply out of the door and slamming it behind him. He wasn’t usually one to announce himself at crime sense, but his confidence was returning for the first time since the Robertson case and he wanted forensics to actually pay attention to him for once.  
Jones materialised at his side and the officer from earlier came hurrying over, his hair all flattened on one side. He was clearly struggling to keep his eyes open. Dan felt uncharacteristically sorry for him. It wasn’t only CID who got hauled out of bed to deal with this stuff.  
“What’s happening?” he asked. The officer yawned before answering.  
“There- sorry- there’s been another incident. Neighbours heard shouting, saw a man carrying a girl away in a car. Nobody got the plates- it was far away and dark, so they couldn’t get a clear view.”  
“What colour was it?” asked Jones. The officer pushed a hand through his hair in a futile attempt to bring some life back into it, looking a little dejected.  
“Dark blue, maybe black. Nothing conspicuous. Seems like it’s pretty easy to get away with things when it’s two in the fucking morning. But forensics are over there, I think they’ve got some stuff for you.”  
Dan nodded, thanking the officer quietly and walking over to the forensics team. Claire hurried over, and for once she didn’t seem to be up for a fight. Her arms were wrapped across her chest against the cold, and she looked worried.  
“Alright, Dan, I don’t know what the fuck your job is but you’d better be ready to do it. This guy’s getting worse.”  
“What do you mean?”  
Jones was standing a little too close to his side, near enough that Dan could feel his body heat. Claire blinked when he spoke, looking between them a few times in confusion before coming back to the job at hand.  
“We’ve found something this time.”  
Her tone was serious, and Dan frowned in confusion.  
“Well that’s good, isn’t it? If he’s left something then we can use it, track him down or something.”  
She shook her head and it remained silent for a moment. A gust of wind blew through the park and Jones pressed closer to Dan’s side, shivering. He coughed awkwardly and shifted away, grateful the low lights hid the blush he was sure was coming up on his cheeks. Claire frowned at them this time, eyes flickering back and forth, calculating as ever. Dan knew from experience that she’d have some sort of conspiracy theory worked out the next time they spoke. She loved accusing him of things. Last time it had been of rigging the building’s computer system to crash, even though he knew nothing about computers beyond how to type on one and had been in the hospital at the time.  
Claire took a deep breath and looked off to one side, not meeting Dan’s eyes.  
“Blood,” she said at last. “We found drops of blood on the grass. There’s no way of telling yet if it belongs to him or the victim, but with what we’ve seen so far I’d say it’s probably the latter. And that’s not all- we found some other stuff. A keyring, one of those photo ones, we think the people in it are the victim and their friends. We’re going to send a notice out, use the picture on some posters. With a bit of luck someone will come forward.”  
Dan nodded grimly, his mouth a tight line. This was serious, and as Claire stepped away he said as much to Jones. The younger man nodded.  
“He’s escalating.”  
“Exactly,” said Dan, shoving his hands deep in his coat pockets to protect them against the biting wind. It was really picking up now, sending Jones’ hair whipping out and returning to its messed-up state.  
“He went from the occasional kidnapping to two in a week, and this time he was armed,” continued Jones, biting his lower lip. “I reckon he’s building up to something.”  
“Yeah?” asked Dan. The younger man nodded.  
“Think so. Only trouble is, I don’t know what it is he wants. And if he is heading for something, why’d it take so long? Twenty years is a long time, even for a psychopath.”  
He was growing agitated, shifting nervously from foot to foot and clutching at his too-thin jacket as though that would somehow make it warmer. Dan took pity on him and unwound the scarf from around his neck, holding it out to his friend. Jones stopped, suddenly stock-still as he looked up at Dan.  
“Seriously?”  
Dan nodded, and when Jones made no move to take it from him he looped the scarf loosely around his neck a couple of times. Jones burrowed down into it gratefully; Dan could have sworn he saw him close his eyes and inhale briefly before smiling.  
“Thanks, Dan,” he said, still moving. He was getting worked up about something. Dan knew the symptoms. This was what happened when the case got hold of you. The need for an answer, the infernal itch of a puzzle left unsolved, mixed with the terrible, nagging anxiety over the outcome until it was nearly impossible to think about anything else. He hesitated for a second before putting a hand on Jones’ shoulder and gently steering him towards the car.  
“Let’s leave them to wrap up here, shall we?” he suggested, knowing how his partner would respond but hoping he was wrong. Sure enough, Jones shook his head insistently and pulled away slightly.  
“I can’t go home. We can’t just leave it like this, not helping.”  
Dan fought to keep the frustration from his voice, speaking in the calm, quiet tone most people reserved for spooked animals and small children. He hadn’t wanted things to turn out this way for Jones, but it had been clear from the beginning that they would. After all, the guy was a natural at police work.  
“Alright. Tell you what, we’ll go back to the station. The canteen should still be above freezing, even this late. We can get some coffee, wait there until the evidence comes in, look over what we’ve got so far.”  
Jones still looked reluctant, and Dan sighed. A little of the edge found its way back into his voice.  
“Come on. We’ll be able to do more good from there than we will just standing out here in the cold.”  
Slowly, Jones nodded. They got back into the car, Jones curling up in the seat and snuggling down against Dan’s scarf. Something warm stirred in Dan’s chest at the sight. They made their way back to the station slowly, the old Ford’s weak headlights barely any use in the patches of darkness between streetlights. The drive was more like a dot-to-dot puzzle than anything else. Eventually they arrived, the lights in the car park now on in full force. It was almost blinding. Dan heard a stifled giggle from the passenger seat and looked across to see his friend grinning broadly.  
“What is it?”  
“You’ll see,” was Jones’ only reply, nodding straight ahead. Dan looked back up and they approached his usual space. Spray-painted above it, the bold and garish colours a sharp contrast to the neat lettering, was a simple sentence.  
 _Property of Jones & Ashcroft._  
Dan stared, feeling the balance of the car shift slightly as Jones sat up and turned to look at him.  
“Is it alright?” he asked hesitantly, worry clear in his voice. Dan shook himself and suddenly he was laughing, tension bubbling up out of him. After a few seconds he calmed down and nodded, smiling at Jones.  
“It’s fantastic.”


	6. Kooks

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shocked gasps* Another chapter? So soon? Backstories? Angst? Fluff?  
> Well, what can I say. I've had a productive evening.

Dan rubbed his hands together in an attempt to bring some warmth back into them and tried to make a mental list of places colder than the police canteen. He’d gotten as far as ‘the dark heart of the DCI’ by the time the kettle boiled, snapping him out of his half-asleep daze. He dumped coffee into the mugs, remembering what Jones had told him and adding plenty of sugar to his. For Jones he made it sweeter than normal, but it was his that was more unusual. It was his special coffee, just about strong enough to revive the dead. He only made it in the middle of the night, when cases required him to stay up. This time, admittedly, he had to stay up for Jones, but it felt just as important.  
He picked up the mugs and was about to bring them over to his partner when he noticed a small tray of snacks and chocolate bars sitting on the counter nearby. Glancing around out of pure habit to make sure nobody was looking, he slipped a few into his pockets and walked carefully back to the table where Jones was waiting. He hummed as he walked. Jones had been pretty wired when they’d got in, the jumble of theories trapped in his mind starting to lose the battle against sleep, and Dan didn’t want to startle him. It was only when he saw the surprised smile on the younger man’s face that he realised he was singing ‘Wish You Were Here’. Somehow, without him really planning it, he’d associated it with Jones. Like since their first meeting, it had become their song.  
He shook his head, trying to clear it. They didn’t have a song, that’d be stupid. They were colleagues, nothing more. Nonetheless he revelled in Jones’ tired smile, in the feather-light brush of their hands as he gratefully accepted the drink. He felt a strange kind of warmth bloom inside of him when Jones put a hand on his arm, the touch lingering for a few seconds too long for it to be entirely innocent as he glanced down and murmured his thanks, and Dan cursed mentally. Every time he thought he had managed to convince himself that he wasn’t attracted to the younger man, something like this happened and he had to start all over again just to try and stop himself from falling.  
“It’s not great,” he said, shrugging his shoulders and rubbing nervously at the back of his neck. “The proper coffee machine we keep up here got turned off for the night. If I go near that it’ll probably explode, so we’re going to have to stick with instant.”  
Jones laughed, drinking deeply and humming in appreciation.  
“It’s good though. Thanks.”  
With a smile, Dan dipped his head in acknowledgement.  
“Join me?”  
Dan motioned towards the only table in the place he actually liked, a small booth near the window. It was by the heater, so it was always warm in winter, and if he looked out in exactly the right direction he could see the London Eye. Sometimes, in summer, he would sit and watch the wheel turn, imagining the thousands of excited tourists who came to see it. Most of the time his natural cynicism took over then, but occasionally, when the sun was shining just right off the surface of the river, it made him feel hopeful. Like maybe, as long as there was some of that innocence left in the city, his job was worth something.  
The sky was dark now, a bitter wind still whistling through the streets, and the wheel had long since stopped moving, but that didn’t matter. When Jones sat down beside him, their legs touching beneath the table, Dan felt the same sense of hope. He couldn’t place it. Perhaps it was because he could see the same kind of innocence in his partner. He smiled then, remembering the coffee-drinking machine, and was about to mention it when he caught sight of his friend. His good mood faded at once.  
Jones was staring out of the window at the darkened sky with the same sorrowful expression on his face as before, and Dan realised that if they were going to get anywhere significant with this case he was going to have to ask Jones about his connection to it.  
He toyed nervously with the handle of his cup, unsure how to proceed. He had never been very good at managing not to offend people. Over the years he’d made it his business to be rude to as many as possible so as to avoid embarrassment later on, but now that wasn’t exactly an option. After a few moments he cleared his throat. Jones turned to look at him immediately, his eyes softened with sleep.  
“Can I- ask you something?” asked Dan, stumbling slightly over the words. Jones spun to face him properly, sipping his coffee.  
“Yeah, ‘course. Anything you like.”  
He was so trusting, so open, and Dan wondered briefly what on earth he was doing. He couldn’t betray that trust, but as always the cynical, police-officer part of his brain was urging him on.  
“The house where Katherine lived, twenty years ago. The, uh, foster home. Did you..?”  
He hesitated.  
“No, sorry. Forget it.”  
He looked down and away, fingers tapping restlessly on the side of the cup. A moment later they were stilled by Jones’ hands, gently covering his own. Dan looked up.  
“Hey, it’s alright.”  
Jones was looking at him, a tiny smile tugging at his lips. He carefully released Dan’s hands, giving him an encouraging nod, not breaking eye contact even as Dan looked at him questioningly.  
“I kinda wanted to tell you anyway,” he continued, settling back against the worn cushions. Dan’s scarf was still wrapped around his neck and he toyed absent-mindedly with the end of it, winding the material between his fingers in endless, intricate loops. “You were going to have to find out sooner or later, right? When we found out about it in the old case files, I nearly told you then, but… I don’t know, maybe I just didn’t know you well enough. Maybe I was hoping it wouldn’t be important.”  
He sighed, pausing and rubbing the scarf between two fingers.  
“And then it happened again, when we went to see Verity’s parents. Don’t suppose that matters now, though.”  
Dan looked at him, sadness tugging at his chest at the look on his friend’s face. Jones’ blue eyes were dimmed, cast down at the table, staring at nothing.  
“I’ve been in foster care my whole life, more or less. I was down in Ditchfield Crescent until I was about six, I think. Couldn’t have been more than about two when Kathy was taken, though. I can’t remember all that much, but I remember her. She was always nice to me. The others, they tried, but when it comes down to it nobody’s got the time for some toddler with ADHD. I thought she was brilliant. Everyone did, but I was always her favourite.”  
A smile flickered across his face as he remembered.  
“Pierced ears, and this leather jacket she’d wear when Mrs McLean wasn’t looking. She was a proper punk, or at least she wanted to be. I loved her like a sister. Though, obviously, not like your sister.”  
Dan huffed out something halfway between a laugh and a sigh at that. Jones didn’t seem to notice.  
“When they told us she was going to be away for a while, I was heartbroken. I remembered this when we were talking to Verity’s parents. I saw all the flowers…”  
He trailed off, slowly bringing himself back to the present and dragging his gaze up to Dan’s face. To his dismay Dan saw tears beginning to form in the corners of his friend’s eyes, and impulsively he reached out until their fingers were just barely touching. Jones’ hand twitched, placing his fingertips over Dan’s, looking like he was gathering his courage to speak.  
“One day- a week or so later, I think- Mr and Mrs McLean called a house meeting. All the kids sat down in the living room, and they told us that Kathy had gone away and she- she wasn’t coming home.”  
A couple of tears spilled over and ran down his cheek. Watching him, Dan hadn’t felt so helpless in a long time.  
“We weren’t invited to the funeral. They buried an empty coffin, I know that now. Some of the older kids organised a kind of funeral of our own. We got all the flowers we could find, all her favourite colours. I just remembered it back there.”  
Sighing out a long, stuttering breath, he swiped a sleeve across his eyes. Dan didn’t know what to say. How could he, when his friend had just laid out something so personal? For several minutes they just sat in silence, letting it hang in the air between them, a vacuum begging to be filled. Jones caught his gaze again after a while, forcing a smile. Dan searched frantically for something to say, and instinctively grabbed at the first thing he thought of. Naturally, it was the kind of thing that no sane human would pick.  
“Your whole life?”  
Jones took a deep breath, slowly calming down. Dan’s mind was reeling, the familiar loop of self-loathing picking up again. Jones shifted so they were pressed together, side-by-side.  
“Yeah. Not at Ditchfield, though. I got kicked out of there when I was about six.”  
Dan fought to keep his voice even when he spoke, desperately keeping his focus on innocent things like the ceiling tiles or the mug of coffee- now cold- sitting in front of him. He wouldn’t let the presence of Jones be a distraction. He wouldn’t.  
“Why?”  
Jones let out a hollow laugh, and suddenly he was pulling away, curling up and scooting round the seat until they were facing each other across the table.  
“Why d’you think? I came home one day and proudly told them that I had a boyfriend. All the other kids were getting dates, even the little ones. I thought they’d be pleased, but… well. They were a good Christian family, weren’t they? Weren’t too pleased when I started talking about liking boys. Figured I had the devil in me. So out I went, just like that. Bounced around a bit, skipping from house to house. Nowhere seemed to fit. The second I was old enough I left, got my own place, put myself through college. Now here I am.”  
He shifted, oblivious to the deep ache in Dan’s chest. He knew nothing about being in foster care, but he was more than familiar with the struggles of having a family who couldn’t accept him. Even now, years after he’d first come out, his depression still got worse around the holidays. Everywhere he looked he would see messages of love and family. It was an all-too-painful reminder of how little of that he had.  
After a moment Jones nudged him with his foot.  
“Go on,” he said, smiling faintly. Dan blinked at him in confusion.  
“What?”  
“Your story. You know mine, so now it’s your turn. That’s kinda how this sharing thing works.”  
Dan shook his head, feeling the terrifyingly familiar darkness swirl behind his chest. Jones’ smile was stronger now, more confident, almost playful.  
“Come on! There’s nobody here. Nobody else has to know. Please, Dan.”  
Jones was starting up with the puppy-dog eyes again. Dan stared at him, sitting there defiantly with tear tracks on his cheeks and a glint of something unidentifiable in his eyes, and sighed.  
“Six months ago-”  
He stopped. Already there was a lump in his throat, anger bubbling away inside of him. He coughed and tried again.  
“Six months ago I was on a case. It was dangerous. This guy had been selling designer drugs outside nightclubs. The Idiots will pay for anything, and thanks to this guy they were literally buying their own funerals. Five people had died by the time we got there.”  
Jones frowned.  
“I remember that. An old friend of mine needed someone to fill in as a DJ, short notice. The party was shit from the beginning, so I bailed. They guy was a dick anyway. The next day I got a call telling me that some girl had collapsed half an hour after I’d gone, some kind of drug overdose, and that I was to go and talk to the detectives.”  
He shot Dan a sharp, wolfish grin.  
“I don’t remember you, though. Believe me, I would have done.”  
Dan swallowed, trying not to blush.  
“Yes. Well. Anyway, we were close to catching him. Me and my old partner had to go armed. But this guy, Joey Robertson, found out somehow. He shot Mike. I couldn’t save my partner, but I knew I could slow him down, and I tried to fire a warning shot but my hands were shaking and he-”  
Dan broke off, tremors running up through his body. He could feel the tears building behind his eyes but he refused to let them spill over. He hadn’t cried about it for six months. There was no reason that night should be any different.  
“Things didn’t go too well after that. I drank a lot. Kicked the habit now, more or less, but it still- it still hurts, it’s still hard and I- I just wonder-”  
He was shaking properly now. Jones swore quietly and moved closer, taking Dan’s hand and twining their fingers together. That was the final straw. Dan felt something inside of him break, like an actual physical release of tension. His shoulders slumped forward, tears running down his face as his chest heaved, gasping for breath.  
“Hey, Dan,” murmured Jones, low and insistent, tracing patterns on the back of his hand. “Listen, come on. You’re alright. I know it’s hard, I’ve been there, but you can get past it. Breathe with me. Listen.”  
Dan forced himself to concentrate on Jones’ hand around his, listening to the pattern of his breaths. Counting silently under his breath, he tried to match his inhales with those of his friend. In for seven, hold for four, out for eight. Someone had taught him that, once. After a while- it was impossible to say how long- the attack began to fade. He closed his eyes. He’d never broken in front of another person before. Every time it had happened he’s been alone, hidden away. Shame, cold and unforgiving, shot through his veins.  
“Dan?”  
Jones’ voice brought him back to himself. He opened his eyes, wanting nothing more than to run away and hide. Jones was looking at him, holding eye contact, smiling reassuringly.  
“There you go,” he said, squeezing Dan’s hand. “I’m sorry. It’s okay. You’re okay.”  
He giggled, a tinge of hysteria in the sound, and wiped his eyes again, sleeve leaving a dark smudge of eyeliner in its wake.  
“God, look at us. Crying like a couple of kids on a sleepover.”  
Dan smiled reluctantly.  
“Not very professional, is it?”  
“Neither is this,” replied Jones, shifting closer and resting his head on Dan’s shoulder. The older man leaned back against the seat and Jones followed, their bodies aligning perfectly as he lay down. A part of Dan was screaming at him, telling him that everything about this was wrong, but he was exhausted. All he cared about was how nicely Jones fitted against him, his head tucked up under Dan’s chin. The younger man’s hair tickled at his chin and Dan found himself snuggling down into it. Jones laughed; Dan could feel his breath on his chest.  
“Never had you down for a cuddler,” he said quietly. Dan wrapped his hands around the younger man’s back and held him close, feeling the way their breaths matched. His mind felt fuzzy. He would’ve said he was drunk if he hadn’t been four months sober. Mumbling something noncommittal in response and knowing he was going to regret it in the morning, he pressed his mouth to Jones’ forehead.  
Just before he fell asleep he could have sworn he heard Jones whisper “I love you a bit,” but that might have been a dream.


	7. Changes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If there's anything glaringly awful here, please forgive me. It's 5am.

As always, waking up was a chore. Dan could never wrap his head around the way some people were able to just leap out of bed in the blink of an eye, ready to start the day in an instant. To him it always felt more like he was drowning, swimming up from the bottom of a lake while his clothes weighed him down and the cold leeched the strength from his body. Consciousness came slowly, like treacle dripping into his mind, filling up bit by bit until eventually he was awake. As a result of this, when he eventually opened his eyes he was already aware of two things. One, he had a terrible crick in his neck; and two, there was a conspicuous absence of Jones curled up against his chest.  
He blinked, propping himself up awkwardly on one elbow and stretching. His joints creaked and popped, which had always happened in the mornings yet never failed to make him feel like a man twice his age. As he sat up properly he looked around, searching for the younger man and wondering when he’d moved. Had it been the second Dan had fallen asleep, or had he waited until the morning before slipping away just moments before Dan woke up? After a moment’s searching he spotted him. Jones was curled up under his leather jacket two tables away, snoring gently. He’d taken off the scarf and was holding it to his chest like a teddy bear, fingers wound tightly into the fabric. Dan stared at him, knowing that it was probably a little strange but somehow unable to look away. The younger man looked so open in sleep, so unguarded. His face was completely relaxed, a soft smile on his parted lips. An odd urge to protect him settled over Dan, like a weight resting on his shoulders. All of a sudden it was dawning on him that no matter what happened to Jones, he was always going to be his responsibility. He would grow, certainly, and after a while Dan would be equally his responsibility, because partners always had each other’s backs. But he was still new. He was still learning, and that meant Dan had to look after him.  
Dan wasn’t sure he was ready. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be.  
Obnoxious footsteps shattered the silence, echoing around the canteen as someone hurried up the stairs. Dan jumped, feeling as though he’d been caught doing something wrong, like a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Jones stirred, snuffling quietly and burying his face in the scarf. As Dan watched he smiled and breathed in deeply, nuzzling down into the soft material. Dan stood, going to the door in the hopes he could stall whoever was trying to come in. Jones probably hadn’t slept much. It had been late when they’d reached the canteen, later still when Dan had fallen asleep, and Jones had clearly got up and moved away at some point during the night. Dan was still trying not to let that one sting. The point was that it was only- he looked at his watch and winced- half past seven, and given that the younger man had already admitted to having trouble sleeping Dan wanted to make sure he got all the rest he could.  
He reached the door too late. It slammed open, crashing into Dan’s face as Nathan- and of course it was Nathan, who else could it have been?- ran in. He yelped in pain, stumbling backwards and tripping over a table leg. The noise was deafening, and Nathan’s cry of “Alright, Preach?” only added to the din. Through streaming eyes he saw Jones jerk awake, sitting up and throwing the scarf down like it was burning him. Dan felt like he’d been kicked. Struggling to his feet, holding his nose- he was sure he was bleeding- he glared at the Idiot with all the hatred he could muster.  
“What do you want?”  
Nathan ignored him, throwing himself down on a chair and causing the legs to scrape harshly across the floor. He was smiling, too, bringing the all-too-familiar smell of cola and unwashed hair with him.  
“Mornin’. Alright, Jonesy?” he added, nodding towards Jones before looking between the two men with a lewd grin. “What were you two doing up here all night? Bit of horizontal yoga, am I right?”  
The comment alone was enough to make Dan want to hit him, but accompanied with the actions and the stupid expression it took all of Dan’s self-control not to punch his lights out then and there. Jones flushed crimson.  
“Fuck off, Nathan,” he said angrily, voice sounding rough and gravelly. His accent was even more pronounced when it was still heavy with sleep, and Dan wondered if he should really find that as attractive as he did before changing tack and wondering when he’d started admitting to being attracted to his partner. It was probably something he should keep quiet.  
Nathan smirked, holding his hands up in mock surrender.  
“No need to bite. I only came up here because Claire wanted me to tell you that she’s got the forensics results in.”  
He looked up to the ceiling, chewing with his mouth open and screwing up his eyes in an effort to remember.  
“She says that the blood found at the park was from two people. One of them was the victim, the other one- oh, fuck it, I wasn’t listening. Something to do with a knife.”  
Jones looked over, not quite meeting Dan’s eyes as he spoke.  
“So it was the same person. I knew it, I knew they were connected.”  
His tone should have sounded excited, but Dan could hear that his heart wasn’t in it. He felt a stab of guilt somewhere deep in his stomach. He couldn’t know for certain what Jones was upset about, but he was pretty certain it had something to do with what had happened the previous night and that made it his fault. He tried to sound encouraging as he next spoke.  
“That’s good, then. Isn’t it? I mean, now we’ve at least got something to go on.”  
Jones nodded slowly, and Nathan stood up.  
“That’s me done, then. You can get back to whatever you were doing.”  
He laughed, winking and tapping the side of his nose.  
“Mum’s the word, right, Preach?”  
Dan opted not to even dignify that with an answer. Instead he glared after the man until even the last echoes of his feet on the stairs had faded. Then, and only then, he managed to look back at Jones.  
“Sorry,” he said, and if he was honest even he couldn’t tell what he was apologising for. There was so much he wanted to make right, so much that he knew he’d messed up. He was sorry for Nathan waking him up. He was sorry for letting the previous night go the way it had. More than anything, really, he was sorry for getting Jones mixed up in the terrible mess of a life he lead. The only problem was that he’d never been nearly good enough with words to tell him that, so instead he simply rubbed sheepishly at his neck and dug his fingers in hard just below the hairline.  
“Sorry,” he said again. Jones shook his head, looking up at him properly for the first time that morning. The eye contact only lasted a second before he was sighing and staring at his shoes again, and Dan felt worthless.  
“It’s alright,” muttered Jones. Dan could hear the self-loathing in his voice and his stomach churned in sympathy. He knew that feeling far too well, would never stop remembering how it felt, how it tasted, hot and heavy and bitter on his tongue. He searched desperately through the dark recesses of his mind for the things that he found had helped, and to his surprise he thought of something.  
“I’m, uh, going to go take a shower,” he said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in the general direction of the changing rooms. Jones looked up, raising an eyebrow.  
“We have showers?”  
“Yeah. Best thing they ever did to this place. I mean, they’re shit, but the water’s hot and if they’re gonna keep poor bastards like us up all night working then it’s the least they could do.”  
Jones smiled at that. It was faint, nothing compared to his usual cheery grin, but it was definitely there and that’s all Dan had been aiming for.  
“I might join you. I mean,” he added hastily, looking embarrassed, “not actually join you, but- fuck- sorry. Shit. Um. You know what I meant.”  
“Yeah.”  
Silence filled the room. Dan found he didn’t mind. It was awkward, but at least it was awkward on the right terms. This was the kind of situation Dan was, unfortunately, pretty much used to. Jones giggled quietly and stood up, picking up the scarf and jacket.  
“I’m gonna need to grab a change of clothes from downstairs,” said Dan. He kept a bag containing some shampoo, a spare shirt and a towel in his locker. Jones grinned. The sparkle in his piercing blue eyes was coming back, and some of the weight on Dan’s shoulders seemed to ease.  
“I’ve got my hair gel, so I’m set,” he joked. “Don’t need anything else.”  
Dan smiled.  
“Come on, then. The showers are next to the locker room, you might as well walk with me.”  
Jones slung the jacket and scarf over his shoulder, effortlessly cool as always, and wandered over to Dan. He didn’t stop moving, just nudged him as he walked past, smiling playfully.   
“Lead the way.”  
Dan realised he’d been staring and screwed his eyes shut, cursing himself, before hurrying to catch up. They made their way down the stairs, falling effortlessly into step like it was the most natural thing in the world to them. The rhythm of their feet echoed off the bare walls, a steady drumbeat amplified and repeated until it sounded like a stampede moving in time with Dan’s racing mind. His thoughts were simultaneously abstract and terrifying, the memories of the previous night tangling up with ideas and theories about the case, all his raw emotions rising painfully to the surface. He was still lost in himself when they reached the locker room.  
“Showers are through there,” Dan said, pointing to a door across the room. Jones nodded and disappeared into the other room as Dan went to his locker. He took his time on purpose, checking and re-checking the contents of the bag. He didn’t want to risk walking in while Jones was getting changed. Even apart from the fact that things were already strange enough between them, he honestly didn’t think he could take it. After a minute he heard the sound of water splashing against tile and decided it was probably safe to go in.  
Jones’ jacket hung neatly on a hook on the wall, the rest of his clothes piled on a chair beneath it. The cubicle door was closed, and Dan breathed a tiny sigh of relief. A towel had been tossed over the top of the cubicle, hanging down over the door, and Dan wondered where he had found it. Knowing Jones, there was a pretty high chance that he’d just sort of acquired it out of thin air.  
The water was slightly too hot, stinging at his skin when he stepped in, but Dan didn’t mind. He showered quickly, listening to Jones singing quietly. It was hard to make out the words above the sound of the water, but every so often he would catch snatches of melody and turn his head slightly to follow them. The songs were varied, the younger man jumping between bands like it was second nature. A few lines of Pink Floyd, something hard and angry by the Sex Pistols, then straight into a chorus plucked from a Bowie song without missing a single beat. Dan pushed his hair from his forehead and tilted his head back under the water, eyes opening in astonishment as Jones went for the high note in ‘Life on Mars’. He hit it, holding the line for as long as possible before segueing into another song, one Dan didn’t recognise, with barely a pause for breath, leaving Dan breathless in his place.  
Dan suddenly wanted nothing more than to see Jones DJ. If this was what he could do as a singer, all the equipment in his flat was probably put to excellent use. The music he’d heard when he’s been at the younger man’s flat hadn’t been the sort of thing he usually listened to, but the sheer talent of it was enough to hold his attention. And he wouldn’t exactly be opposed to getting the chance to sit and watch Jones work, either, those long, delicate fingers moving surely and swiftly between the switches and dials before him. Dan didn’t have a clue how any of it worked, of course, but the fantasy was there. The music, loud enough that you felt it more than you heard it, dictating his heartbeat, his breathing. Jones, confident but not cocky, totally in his element as the sounds flowed together beneath his hands. Those hands, so very talented…  
Suddenly Dan’s shower felt just that bit too warm and he fumbled with the controls for a few seconds, hissing in an odd mixture of surprise and relief as the cold water hit his skin and extinguished any lingering fantasies. Rinsing away the last of the shampoo in a hurry, he dried off and wrapped the towel around his waist, opening the cubicle door to pick up his clothes. As he was about to close the door he saw Jones doing the same. The younger man had his towel clutched close, covering as much of his body as possible, but as he leaned out Dan caught the briefest glimpse of pale skin and a thin, wiry frame. Jones’ hipbones peeked out from above the lower edge of the material and Dan ducked quickly back into the cubicle, suddenly terrified of being spotted. He dressed in a hurry, barely paying attention to what he was wearing, to the extent that he managed to put his shoes on the wrong feet not once, but twice. Eventually, with everything on the right limbs, he opened the door. Jones was already there waiting for him, standing in front of the mirrors and combing his hair as well as he could with his fingers. He smiled when he saw Dan.  
“Alright, mate?”  
His speech pattern was so similar to Nathan’s at times. Dan wondered why, then, he was so happy to listen to Jones for hours on end when the mere sound of Nathan’s voice made him want to hit something. He nodded, smiling faintly.  
“Yeah, much better. I had a bit of a sore neck earlier. Not exactly the most comfortable place to sleep, is it?” he replied, nodding up towards the canteen where they’d spent the night. Jones looked down a little sheepishly, mumbling.  
“It’s not so bad.”  
Dan fought back a grin as the younger man looked up at him, eyes laughing. He hadn’t really had a chance to look at what he was wearing in the dark of the night before, but now he could properly appreciate his colleague’s choice of clothing. It all seemed to be just skirting on the edges of the station’s unofficial dress code. He wore a dark blue shirt paired with tight black jeans and a leather jacket. On top of that, looking a little out of place, was Dan’s scarf. It wasn’t a combination that should have looked stylish, but on Jones it worked, especially under his multi-coloured hair that was drying in soft waves. The younger man stepped slightly closer, looking him in the eyes with a faintly worried expression.  
“Listen, about last night… I’m sorry,” he said quietly. Dan tried to cut him off, assure him that it was okay, but Jones wouldn’t let him.  
“No, it’s not okay. It was late, and I hadn’t slept much, and the case just- it hit a bit close to home, you know?”  
He ran a hand nervously through his damp hair, messing it up just the right amount.  
“It was unprofessional.”  
Dan swallowed a comment about how that hadn’t seemed to matter all that much the previous night, refusing to let his reflexive sarcasm ruin anything else for him, and nodded.  
“Shall we just not mention it?” he asked, not entirely sure what he wanted the answer to be. Jones hesitated for a moment before nodding his agreement.  
“Thanks.”  
Dan forced himself to smile.  
“No problem.”  
As they made their way back up to the main office, pausing for Dan to put away his shirt and towel, Jones started to hum quietly. Dan recognised it as the same jumbled mixture of songs from the showers, and wondered why the songs he’d chosen were so different from the ones he used when mixing at home.  
They were only a couple of metres from the desk when it finally dawned on him that there was a chance Jones had picked those songs for him.


	8. Jean Genie

Evidence lay scattered around the small room like an excited tornado had been let in, sending flurries rifling through all the filing cabinets and overturning desks left, right, and centre until it was nearly impossible to see the floor. Dotted here and there were cardboard boxes and stacks of battered files, and occasionally one of these would overbalance and send hundreds of sheets of paper skittering about the room. Dan looked about him in shock. He’d only gone out for a few minutes to fetch coffees and now the room was almost unrecognisable.  
Sitting in the middle of all the chaos, cross-legged in the middle of one of the desks, was the aforementioned tornado. Jones was peering intently at a sheet of paper, a tiny frown creasing his forehead. Dan coughed and picked his way hesitantly through the masses of paper and cardboard boxes on the floor. Jones didn’t seem to notice him, only looking up when Dan placed the mugs down beside him. He flashed him a sharp grin, picking up the coffee.  
“Cheers,” he said, taking a drink and closing his eyes. Dan let his gaze flicker momentarily to the pale skin at his neck, a stark contrast to his raven hair and dark jacket. When he hummed appreciatively, taking another long gulp, Dan could see his Adam’s apple move. He swallowed, mouth feeling a little dry, and moved closer to see what his partner was looking at. It was a case file marked as being from Manchester. Dan shook his head in confusion.  
“Where did all this come from?” he asked, picking up another sheet of paper at random. This one said it was from Bristol. Jones tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement, still focused on the file in front- and also largely on top- of him.  
“Hm?”  
“Where did all this come from?” Dan repeated. Jones had to lean back to look up at him, the movement bringing him to rest against the taller man’s arm. Dan didn’t mind all that much.  
“Well, you know how we sent out that email? Turns out there are loads, and I mean loads, of cases fitting the description. We got like 150 cases sent in, all over the country.”  
He grinned and gestured to all the files around him.  
“There’s like another five boxes downstairs at reception. Talking of which, see the girl down there? Pretty sure she wants to get off with me.”  
His cheeky grin widened when he saw Dan’s frown, and the taller man made a conscious effort to wrestle back a mostly neutral expression.  
“You brought all of these up while I was gone?”  
“Yeah,” laughed Jones. “Thought the postman was gonna murder me.”  
Dan was still blinking in confusion.  
“By yourself?”  
“Yeah.”  
Jones tilted his head, confusion clouding his eyes. There was a hint of frustration there too, like he was annoyed at Dan for not paying attention.  
“Problem?”  
Dan shook his head. His mind seemed to have ground to a stop for a moment, unable to reconcile the small, wiry man before him with the kind of guy who could carry fifteen cardboard boxes up the stairs single-handed. Forcing himself to pay attention to the case at hand, filing the mental image away for later, he shuffled some papers around before hesitantly sitting down next to his partner.  
“Nothing. So we’ve got all of these files. How do we prove they’re connected?”  
Jones shook his head, staring down at the sheets of paper before him in exasperation before looking back up at him. Dan felt as though he was being prompted to elaborate further, like he was missing a point, but he couldn’t follow Jones’ line of thought at all. After a minute or so of Jones looking expectantly at him an idea began to form in his mind. He spoke slowly, hesitantly.  
“How do… how do we tell if they aren’t?”  
Jones smiled, eyes glinting.  
“Exactly.”  
Dan looked around the room, completely bewildered as to how that was a good thing. If all of the cases might be connected, how on earth were they supposed to narrow it down? Jones, however, seemed to think this was just about the best thing to ever happen, so he tried to go along with it. Jones seemed to sense his confusion.  
“Look, just think about it. If we assume that only a handful of these cases are connected, we’ll never get anything done. We could spend hours looking through these and never get anywhere, ‘cause all we’d be looking for is a clue that says some of them are linked. What I reckon, right, is that they’re all linked. Or, at least, most of them are.”  
Dan frowned.  
“No. They can’t be. Jones, we’re looking at teenage runaways. They can’t all have been kidnapped.”  
Frustration flared behind Jones’ eyes again. It seemed like this was a touchy subject for him, though of course Dan barely realised. The younger man’s hands were balled into fists in his lap.  
“Y’know, contrary to popular belief, there aren’t all that many ‘teenage runaways’ in the world that are just trying to get away from their families,” he said angrily. Dan glared, anger rising up in him the way it always did when someone tried to correct him. He hated being told he was wrong, he’d been telling himself it for too long to let anyone else even think about having a go.  
“Oh yeah? And how would you know? I’ve been in the police for years, you think I haven’t seen-”  
“I was one of ‘em!” yelled Jones, half-standing and accidentally kicking the table as he did so. His mug toppled, the already-chipped handle snapping off as the brown liquid spilled over the desk. Dan felt frozen to the spot, and so was Jones. They watched in terrible silence as the stain spread, almost in slow motion, soaking into the papers until eventually it reached the edge of the wood and dripped away into the carpet. Jones closed his eyes and sat down heavily on the floor, hiding his face. Dan was certain his heart had dropped away from his chest, leaving only empty space.  
“Sorry,” whispered Jones, his voice sounding thick and choked. Dan found he had no idea what he was supposed to do. What was the right response when someone you cared about was hurting? He had a vague suspicion that it might have something to do with hugging them, but he had never been sure how to go about it. On the rare occasions he allowed someone to hold him it was usually the other person who initiated it. So, instead of moving to help his friend, Dan did the only thing he could think of. He cleaned up the coffee, and despised himself for it.  
After a few minutes of hopelessly moving spilled liquid around he heard a rustling of papers behind him. Jones had climbed to his feet and moved over; Dan could sense him, just inches from his back. Nonetheless it was a shock when he spoke.  
“Here, let me,” he said softly, reaching out to move the stained papers out of the way. They were so close now, and when Dan turned round and saw the tell-tale redness around his eyes they were already colliding. Jones slipped his arms around the taller man’s waist, just for a moment, pressing his face against Dan’s shoulder and breathing deeply. Dan stood, far too stiff, terrified and uncomfortable and wishing he knew how to reciprocate the way he wanted to.  
Jones laughed, more a shaky exhale of breath than an actual sound, and ran a hand through Dan’s hair. Dan found himself melting against the touch, looking into Jones’ eyes that seemed a darker blue than he remembered, and for a wild moment he thought the younger man was going to kiss him. The thought sent a jolt to his stomach, but before he’d had time to process it Jones was stepping back.  
“Sorry,” he said again. “I just… Look, I know a bit about running away, okay? And I can tell you that all runaways come from homes where they’re unloved. Sometimes the parents can fool you- an abuser looking for their victim, that kind of thing, they can look almost exactly like someone who’s just lost the only person they care about in the world. But I can spot ‘em. The McLeans, they loved us. Kathy wouldn’t have run away from that. And those people we spoke to, Verity’s mum and dad- she was their only child, and they loved her so much. The girls might have been causing trouble, but it’s really unlikely they’d want to run off by themselves.”  
Dan nodded slowly. His heart rate was beginning to slow back to a sensible rate, though he felt no less guilty and a voice at the back of his mind was begging to know what had happened to Jones. It wasn’t curiosity, not exactly, but a strange sort of protectiveness. He wanted to make sure that whatever it was would never happen again. He made himself ignore it as he looked to Jones for advice.  
“Alright. So we assume all these are connected- how on earth do we track the killer? These are from the whole country, there’s no way we can work it out. I mean, alright, I could probably get Pingu to set up some kind of computer… thing, I don’t know, but-”  
“Shut up,” said Jones, smirking at him. “You know a computer’s no use until we’ve got an actual connection between them. Plus it’s less easy to visualise. We just need a map of England and-”   
He paused, scanning the room and muttering under his breath.  
“-about two hundred drawing pins. With a few different colours, if possible.”  
Dan felt a smile tug at his lips as he realised where Jones was going with this.  
“Isn’t that a bit old fashioned for you?” he teased, grinning when the younger man flipped a couple of v-signs his way. He was good at this kind of old-school police work. It was what he’d always wanted to do when he was a kid, proper Sherlock Holmes crime webs stretching out across entire walls. Jones was the only other person he knew who thought the same. Feeling much more optimistic now that the tension had cleared, replaced with the excited determination that Dan had thought he’d never experience again, he nodded.  
“I’ll go raid the stationery cupboard,” he said. “You find us a map.”  
***  
The hours passed in a blur. Dan had returned from the cupboard with string, duct tape, and five colours of drawing pin to find that Jones had somehow procured a large map of the UK, with all the major cities marked. Working together, Jones opting to stand on a desk to reach the top corners rather than ask Dan to do it, they’d taped it to the back wall of the room and methodically worked through the case files, putting pins in the locations specified. Jones had come up with the idea of splitting the cases up into years; those which were marked ’88-’91 were represented by a white pin, ’92-’95 were red, and so on. This had seemed stupid to Dan at first, he had to admit, but now he looked at the completed map he understood why the younger man had suggested it. There were a few outliers- some odd blues in a patch that was largely red, and so on- which made it easy to see the pattern. There was a clear trail of cases tracing a rough circle around the map, flitting between major cities, dropping a few pins in each before moving on. The colours spoke for themselves. The kidnapper- and Dan was certain now that the crimes were being committed by the same person- had been travelling around the country on a twenty-year killing spree. There were over a hundred pins fitting the trail, which started and ended in-  
“London,” said Jones, sucking on the tip of his thumb as he spoke. Dan massaged his own fingers, wincing as he realised just how tender the skin was. He’d been sticking pushpins into a wall for- he checked his watch- four hours. Frankly, it was a wonder he had any thumbs left at all.  
“London,” he repeated. “He’s completing the circle.”  
Jones turned to look at him, eyes shining in understanding.  
“Exactly. An’ that explains why he’s been escalating, as well.”  
Dan nodded, moving forward to the map and plucking out the incongruous pins as he spoke, voicing his thoughts out loud.  
“He starts in London, probably quite young at the time if he’s still going today.”  
“Could be a she,” pointed out Jones, words sounding a little slurred around his thumb. “Or neither.”  
“Could be, and I appreciate you being inclusive in your list of possible murderers, but statistically it’s much more likely that the person we’re after is a man.”  
“Point taken.”  
Dan smiled fondly, dropping a couple of stray blues back into their box and letting his brow furrow in concentration. He’s always been good at getting inside the mind of their suspects, and he felt himself begin to slip into the character he saw on the board in front of him.  
“The first girl he takes, he’s nervous. He doesn’t know what he’s doing; maybe it’s a spur-of-the-moment thing. He’s carrying a knife, but instead of managing to use it he just cuts his own hand. So he takes the girl-”  
Dan is careful not to say Kathy’s name. If he was going to keep up that promise of not upsetting Jones, he was pretty sure a good way to go about it was by not discussing the possible death of his childhood friend.  
“-he takes the girl, and by now the rush has got into him. He likes it, likes the power it gives him, and when it comes to the next girl he knows he doesn’t need a knife. He gets his technique down, gets into his stride.”  
Dan was pacing by then, looking at things he can’t quite see as he visualised the crime scenes. He could feel Jones’ eyes on him, a slight prickling at the back of his neck, but it only fuelled his descriptions further. The words came faster as he grew more and more confident, certain he was right.  
“But he can’t keep taking them from the same place, because someone will notice. Maybe he’s lucky and has a job that keeps him moving around, giving him new opportunities. Maybe he just takes small jobs, never going full-time in case the itch rises again and he finds a new girl to fixate on. A handful of them in each city, then he’s moving away again. Twenty years later and now he finds himself back in London, staring back at his beginnings. There’s nothing to stop him now. Before, when he was in other cities, he could ignore the feeling for maybe a few months at a time. Now there’s a constant reminder of his first kidnapping. He starts to remember it all, and maybe at first it’s just sensations but soon he has it all, fresh in his mind again, right down to the smallest detail. And maybe he remembers some loose ends from way back then. He can’t leave those, he has to take care of them, has to make it clean. But now he’s remembered the mistakes he made he doesn’t think he’s good enough anymore. He needs to practice, needs to get better, so he takes another girl, and another, getting more violent each time because now he’s angry, so angry, at himself and at his target for getting in the way, for ruining it all. And now…”  
He trailed off, realising he was shaking. The energy he’d been describing had been so vivid that it terrified him, spasms of exhilarated terror shooting randomly through him. Jones was looking at him, wide-eyed.  
“He needs to go full circle,” said Dan, a slight tremor creeping into his voice. “He’ll stop at nothing until he finishes what he started.”  
“And then?” asked Jones. Dan shook his head.  
“Probably suicide. He sees it as completion. There’s nothing left for him.”  
Jones released a long, shaky breath.  
“That was fucking scary, Dan,” he said, moving forward and putting a hand on Dan’s arm as though to reassure himself that the person he was talking to wasn’t really a murderer. Dan found himself clutching at Jones’ fingers without really meaning to, needing something to ground him. He felt sick and disoriented, like he was floating somewhere outside of his body and moving by remote control. If he concentrated on the warmth and strength in Jones’ hands he found he could regain some control. Jones was looking at him in concern.  
“You should go home,” he said carefully. “Get some rest, yeah? Don’t worry about me,” he added, in answer to Dan’s noise of protest. “I’ve got a couple of things I need to finish up here, and then I can get the bus home.”  
Dan wanted to refuse, wanted to stay and help, but he felt simultaneously exhausted and absolutely wired and wasn’t sure he’d be of any use if he stayed. Rather reluctantly, he nodded. Jones smiled.  
“See you in the morning.”  
“See you,” mumbled Dan. He seemed to have lost control of his mouth slightly, and hoped he could talk enough sense back into it before it tried to do something stupid like kissing Jones. The younger man patted his shoulder and made a vague shooing gesture. Before he left, however, Dan remembered what he had in his pockets and turned around, tossing a Mars bar to his friend.  
“Here,” he said with a weak smile. “It’s been a long day. That’ll keep you going.”  
Jones’ face lit up and he had stuffed half of the chocolate in his mouth before Dan’s numb mind had even processed what was going on.  
“Mmph,” mumbled Jones vaguely by way of thanks, swallowing the chocolate and grinning. “Thanks. That was genius, what you did there.”  
“What about that thing with the pins, all the different colours? Where did you get that idea?” asked Dan, brushing off the compliment. Jones just chuckled.  
“Elementary, my dear Ashcroft,” he quipped, blue eyes glinting. “Now go get some sleep.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dan's big speech at the end there? That was my unedited thought process. I apologise for any distress the chaos of my mind may have caused.


	9. The Man Who Sold The World

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may or may not have altered a very large part of this story just for the BFQOTY joke in this chapter. I also may or may not have cackled a bit while writing it.

Dan stood in his flat, moodily stirring instant coffee into his mug and dry-swallowing a couple of painkillers. There was a dark fog building somewhere behind his eyes that was one argument away from becoming a fully-fledged migraine, and he wasn’t planning on letting that happen. He hadn’t slept much. The fog brought with it vague, half-formed memories of the dream he’d had the previous night, and he rubbed his eyes to try and bring them into focus.  
He’d been running from something, he remembered that much. He didn’t know what it was, but it had been huge and looming over him. Rivers of coffee had been pouring around him like lava, burning at his feet as he hopped as fast as he could from stone to stone across the floor. Jones had been there, for some reason, shouting something at him. Dan couldn’t quite remember if it had been encouragement or a cry for help. Either way, it had been important.  
Sighing and shaking his head to drive out the last traces of the dream, Dan sorted through the small heap of envelopes he’d collected from his doormat before heading to the kitchen. As usual, they were mostly bills. There was one which stood out a little more than the others- a letter from his landlord calmly informing him that if he didn’t pay the six months of rent he owed them by the end of the day they were going to have to ask him to vacate the building. Attached to the stern yet politely-worded letter was a sticky note which reiterated, in no uncertain terms, that he was “a lazy, good-for-nothing bastard who has until tomorrow morning to get his fat arse out of my building”.  
British manners. Weren’t they a wonderful thing?  
Dan stared blankly at the letter for a few minutes before tearing it roughly in half and tossing it to the floor in anger. He’d tried explaining to the fat, angry old man who owned the building that he’d been pretty fucked up for most of those six months and now he simply didn’t have the money, but the landlord never listened. He seemed to be holding a grudge against Dan for something he didn’t even remember doing. Apparently Drunk Dan was even more of a dick than Sober Dan.  
He gulped down the rest of his coffee, deciding to ignore the letter until the last minute in the hope that it would go away as long as he didn’t think about it. Admittedly that technique had never worked for him before, but Dan still lived in hope. He picked up the car keys from his table and stuffed them into his pockets, beside the other chocolate bars he’d taken the other day. He should really think about eating those at some point. Maybe Jones would take them off his hands- he had, after all, only picked them up for his friend in the first place.  
For some reason the thought of seeing Jones made him feel slightly cheerier, and he was almost smiling as he walked out to his car. As he started up the engine the radio faded into life. It was playing something modern and electronic-sounding, the sort of thing Dan normally hated, but instead of reaching instantly to change the station like he usually would he hesitated. The music sounded a lot like the song Jones had been playing at his flat when Dan went to collect him at 2am. If he was honest, Dan preferred Jones’ mix- it had much more of a personality, the near-effortless blending of tracks sounding far more real than the song coming from the car’s slightly tinny speakers- but then again he might have been a little biased. This song was alright though, he conceded, nodding absently along while he waited for the lights to change. It was interesting; instead of lyrics, old news bulletins had been layered on top of the music. Dan made a mental note to recommend the band to Jones. It sounded to him like the sort of thing the younger man would like.  
He pulled up outside the station with the song stuck in his head, where he was absolutely certain it would stay for the rest of the day. To be fair, he’d had worse. Once he’d spent almost a whole week singing ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams because Nathan or one of the other twats in the office had left the radio on. The effect had been rather like poking the Incredible Hulk with a sharp stick. The song- in both tune and message- was more or less the exact opposite of everything Dan stood for. This, at least, wasn’t going to make him want to tear his own ears off.  
He strolled up the stairs, scanning the office to see if he could spot Jones. After a few moments of futile searching he had to resign himself to the fact that the younger man wasn’t there yet. Scowling, he sat down at his desk. From out of the corner of his eye he saw Pingu stand up and scurry towards him and he tried to make himself look vaguely presentable before remembering that the majority of people in the office only knew him as either “Preacher Man” or “Grumpy old dick” (which he’d always resented, seeing as he was only in his thirties) and keeping up appearances didn’t matter if he had nobody to keep them up for.  
Jones had better get to work soon. Dan thought he was going to go mad.  
“Um, Dan?” asked Pingu. The sound of his voice sent a spike of irritation through Dan’s head, but the painkillers were starting to kick in and it wasn’t as bad as he’d thought it might be.  
“What do you want?” he growled, swiping a hand across his eyes and trying his best to focus on Pingu. The young man hesitated, clutching at the paper in his hand like it was a lifeline. Dan wondered what Nathan had done to the boy to make him so perpetually nervous.  
“We’ve got a suspect in that last case. The, uh, the kidnapping? Officer Smanks brought him in about half an hour ago. He’s being held in interrogation, they’re waiting for you.”  
Dan nodded and moved to stand up, then hesitated.  
“Have you seen Jones?” he asked. Pingu shrugged.  
“I- I don’t think so? I haven’t seen him today. Shall I send him down if he comes in?”  
“Please, yeah. Cheers, Pingu.”  
Pingu offered him a hesitant smile. Dan didn’t really care, but in a tiny and mostly ignored corner of his brain he felt a small sense of… not happiness, exactly, but acknowledgement that maybe he hadn’t ruined someone's day for once. Jones was rubbing off on him.  
Dan blinked. He was going to have to find a better way of phrasing that.  
He looked quickly through the file as he made his way down to the interrogation room. He saw no need to hurry; he’d always been told to let the guy stew for a while, make him uncomfortable. The suspect, a man in his twenties, had several previous convictions. He’d been arrested once on an assault charge, but nothing had been proved and he’d walked free. There were also several accusations of sexual harassment against him, but again, nothing that was enough to convict him. His hair, Dan thought, looking at the photograph attached to the file, was absolutely ridiculous. Suited him, though. He was actually kind of attractive.  
He took a deep breath before entering the room, forcing thoughts of the attractiveness of both the suspect and his own partner from his head and sinking back into his familiar persona of Authoritative Police Detective Who Has No Time For Your Shit, Smartarse. It was one he’d cultivated to perfection over the last few years, and it had served him well as a detective. Putting it back on after so long felt like putting on a pair of slippers. Steel-toed slippers. With spikes.  
Dan pushed open the door to see a cocky, messy-haired young man sitting at the table and grinning.  
“About time,” he said. “Been in here fucking hours, I have. Where were you?”  
Dan refused to rise to the bait, sitting down calmly and sorting through the papers in front of him.  
“Could you state your name for the record, please?” he said. The suspect’s grin broadened.  
“Russell,” he said, with a pronounced Essex drawl. “Brand.”  
Too young, thought Dan, checking the date on the files again. The man was only 29 years old. Unless he’d been kidnapping girls from a ridiculously early age there was no way he could be a serious suspect in this case. Nonetheless, it was worth following up on it.  
“Okay, Russell. Do you know why you’re here?”  
“Yeah. Some girl got kidnapped, terrible shame, my heart goes out to her family, really it does, and I’ve pissed off a couple of your officers before so they decided to drag me in here to see if it was me. Which, by the way, it wasn’t.”  
“Well, we’ve yet to see about that. Mr Brand-”  
“Call me Russell, please.” The man leaned forward on his elbows, smirking cheerily and chewing exaggeratedly on a piece of gum. Dan leaned away, but Russell followed his every move without a pause. “I insist,” he continued in a low voice, teasing.  
Dan swallowed and looked back down at his notes, unable to hold the man’s gaze. He could hear Russell’s grin broaden as he continued.  
“-Russell. Could you please tell me where you were on the evening of the 5th?”  
The young man’s eyes rolled back in his head a little as he thought back. It was an exaggerated gesture, but then everything about the man was flamboyant; his hair alone was probably enough to cause its own hole in the ozone layer. The clothes he wore seemed specially designed to show off as much of his body as possible, the skinny jeans he wore clinging to his legs- and slightly higher as well- and a shirt which fell open across his chest. Dan was finding it difficult not to stare.  
“Yeah. The 5th would’ve been when I was at that protest. Peaceful, mind you, I know what you police types are like. Look it up, we was on the news.”  
“What were you protesting?” asked Dan, making a note of it under the heading ‘Surprisingly Attractive Potential Murderer’. Sometimes he was glad that nobody else saw his notebook.  
“University fees. Costs a bloody fortune just to get a good education nowadays. It wasn’t violent, honest, just my very wonderful self and a load of other students sitting down outside the buildings an’ holding up signs. Like I said, we was on the news. Go and look it up. I was near the front.”  
Dan smiled coldly.  
“I’ll be sure to do so. In the meantime, we’d like to keep an eye on you.”  
“I’m sure you would, darlin’,” teased Russell, smiling and running the tip of his tongue slowly across his bottom lip. “But where’s your proof?”  
Dan had to bite his lip to keep from laughing. The way he said ‘proof’ was nothing short of hilarious- it was like he’d forgotten there were any vowels in it.  
“I’m sorry?” he asked, surprised at how even his voice was.  
“I said, where’s your proof? There’s no proof I’m involved in any of this,” said Russell, and Dan took a few seconds to breathe before he could look back at him.  
“That may be true, but we don’t yet know for certain if your story is true and we may have further questions to ask you. You can leave the station now, but don’t go far. We’ll be in touch.”  
Russell laughed.  
“I’m sure you will, love, I’m sure you will. Try taking me out for a drink first. After all… nothing ventured, nothing gained.”  
With a sly grin and a tip of his hat he stood, running his hand lightly across Dan’s shoulder on the way past. Dan held his breath and tried not to shiver at the touch, forcing himself to think of someone else. It was only after Russell had left, the door swinging shut behind him, that Dan realised he’d been thinking of Jones.  
Shaking his head and standing up, collecting his notes together, he glanced down at his watch. It was nearly noon, and Pingu had promised to send Jones down if he showed up. Where the hell was he? If nothing else, Dan at least wanted a second opinion on whether or not it was reasonable for him to be attracted to the suspect.  
Dan sighed, running a hand restlessly through his hair. Why was he thinking about Jones so much? Come to think of it, why was the suspect so attractive? He knew it had been a dry spell, but this was getting out of hand. He refused to make a pass at Jones because he might be in love with him, and that had never worked out before. He also definitely couldn’t hook up with Russell because, no matter how much the guy was definitely up for a bit of no-strings-attached fun, he was still very much a murder suspect. A probably innocent murder suspect, but the point stands.  
Surely, he thought, he must be the only person in the world this sort of thing happened to. Nobody else could be that unlucky.  
He walked back up the stairs, trying not to seem like he was in too much of a hurry. He wanted to know if Jones was there yet. Their only suspect had walked free, though not without asking Dan on a date, for some reason, and he needed someone to talk to. He was sick of bouncing ideas off the walls.  
He slumped down at his desk with a groan and checked his phone absent-mindedly, surprised when the screen told him he had five new messages. He opened them up one by one. They were all from Jones; Dan had given him his number on the way back from their first crime scene, in case of emergencies.  
 _Dan? Need to talk to you. Call me._  
It had been sent at 11:30 the previous night. In fact, noticed Dan, looking through them in quick succession, every message had been sent in the middle of the night. He frowned and read through them.  
 _Think Ive found a connection. Please call._  
The next one came barely a minute later.  
 _Shit, is that th time? Sorry._  
 _Ran the circle through the dtabase. Probly just coincidence but DCI has been at every one of those cities._  
Dan frowned, nerves building in his stomach. Why the fuck wasn’t Jones at work yet? The last message was short and to the point, and his chest filled with sudden dread.  
 _Please call me._  
“Everything alright, detective?”  
Dan jumped, the sound of the DCI’s oily voice making his skin crawl. He slammed his phone down like a teenager caught doing something everyone would rather he didn’t.  
“Absolutely, sir. Just going over these interview notes.”  
He gestured awkwardly in the approximate direction of the files. The DCI smiled, a crocodile smile filled with sharp teeth and barely-concealed menace.  
“Excellent. Always good to see my detectives actually doing their jobs. I notice your young- ahem- colleague isn’t here, though. Where might he be?”  
Dan gritted his teeth and lied through them. He hated the DCI more and more with every passing second.  
“I don’t know, sir. I think he might be off sick, but he’s not got in touch with me yet.”  
The DCI’s smile only grew wider, and Dan’s hands twitched into fists under the desk. His fingers itched to punch that smug little grin right off his face, but he dug his nails into his palms and forced himself to ignore it.  
“Well, I hope you can continue to work without him. I expect great things from you now you’re not having to babysit.”  
Dan forced a smile onto his face, though he suspected it looked more like a grimace.  
“Yes, sir.”  
He looked back down at his desk and realised with a sickening jolt that he’d left his phone facing upwards. The texts were emblazoned across the screen for anyone to see, and the DCI was still hovering over him. He couldn’t turn it over now without drawing even more attention to it. Mouth going dry, heartbeat hammering in his ears, he stared down at the files and flicked through the papers. The DCI lingered there for another few seconds before strolling calmly away, leaving Dan on the verge of panic.  
As soon as the DCI was out of sight Dan leapt up, snatching up the phone and running down to the car park. He was already dialling as he hurried down the stairs, stumbling out into the cold and pressing the phone to his ear.  
“Come on, come on,” he muttered, a little frantically if he was telling the truth. “Pick up the phone, you dick.”  
The answer machine clicked in, smoothly informing him that the person he was trying to reach was unavailable. Dan yelled in frustration, shoving the stupid machine back in his pocket before he did something reckless like flinging it against a wall and then jumping on it. Pacing anxiously, he tried to think.  
“He’s probably just slept in,” he said out loud, more in an attempt to reassure himself than anything else. “He was up late, he doesn’t sleep anyway; it’s about time the kid got some rest.”  
Before he’d quite finished the sentence someone had grabbed him from behind and slammed him up against the side of his car. Wheezing as the wind was knocked out of him, Dan twisted frantically to try and see who it was. The person holding him jerked his arm up into a police arm lock, making him call out in pain, and then a cloth was being pressed to his nose and mouth. A strong scent filled his lungs and he gagged, trying to move away, but his attacker had him pinned. His vision began to blur, colours running into each other like water on a painting, then his knees trembled and gave out and he slumped to the hard concrete. He was dimly aware of how much that hurt, but it didn’t seem to matter too much at that point. Just before he blacked out he heard a voice, terrifyingly close to his ear, that seemed to echo in a hundred different languages as it spoke.  
“You’re a clever man, Dan, so I’ll ask you this, just this once; does this rag smell like chloroform to you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Dan listens to in the car is Gagarin by Public Service Broadcasting, you can listen to it at http://youtu.be/wY-kAnvOY80


	10. Rock 'n' Roll Suicide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the more observant among you will have noticed that the rating has changed. Trust me, it needed to. I don't know what the fuck happened but everything's gone a lot darker that I anticipated. Warnings for this chapter- mentions of suicide, mentions of self harm, descriptions of violence, some blood, a lot of potentially triggering and homophobic language. It's at this point that I feel I should point out that I absolutely, definitely DO NOT think any of these are acceptable. Bad characters do bad things. Writers with half a conscience deeply regret having to write said things.

The world hurt. Before he’d even opened his eyes Dan was aware of the painful, searing brightness shining down on him, making him screw his eyes even more tightly shut and whimper quietly. The sound resonated in his ears, unnaturally loud, seeming to echo away into space. From somewhere behind him he heard movement, the sound of material shifting as someone struggled to sit upright. He stiffened, forcing himself to stay stock still for fear of what might happen if he didn’t. Straining his ears to catch any sound, he waited. The scuffling noises continued, then a hesitant whisper broke the silence.  
“Dan?”  
He could have cried with relief. It was Jones. He sounded weak, almost exhausted, and there was a scratchy edge to his voice that made it sound to Dan as though he’d been crying, but Dan didn’t care. He was alive. That was all that mattered.  
“Yeah,” he said shakily. “Yeah, Jones, it’s me.”  
“Thank god.”  
Jones’ words were delivered almost as a sob. Dan opened his eyes cautiously, squinting against the glaring light until his vision adjusted. He was in a large, empty building, flat expanses of cold, hard flooring stretching out either side for a long way before meeting the sheer metal walls. Occasional dust-covered cardboard boxes were the only things which broke the monotony. High above his head there were several large openings, which he assumed to be air vents. Bright sunlight was shining through them, cold and piercing in the way that only winter sunlight can be.  
“Where are we?” he asked, more thinking out loud than really expecting an answer. He was surprised when Jones gave him one.  
“Old supermarket. Without the shelves and things it’s really just a warehouse. This one’s probably been abandoned for a while. There’s dozens of ‘em round the edges of the city if you know where to look.”  
Dan tried to twist to look at the younger man, but something was pinning his wrists behind him and the movement only resulted in sending a sharp stab of pain through his already sore shoulder. He hissed in pain and reluctantly settled back against what he assumed to be a pipe or pillar of some description.  
“What’s-?”  
“Police cuffs,” said Jones. “It was DCI Malcolm, we were right. I saw him bring you in, but I pretended to be unconscious. He’d knocked you out, drugged you I think. I couldn’t see any blood. You were out for ages. For a while I thought you weren’t going to wake up.”  
Jones’ breath hitched on the last sentence and it was several seconds before he continued.  
“I’m on the next pipe across. Here…”  
There was a pause, and after a moment Dan felt a feather-light touch on the back of his hand. He reached towards it, letting his fingers curl around Jones’. The knowledge that the younger man was there, real and solid, made him feel very slightly better. He frowned as his fingers came into contact with something wet and slick against his skin. A terrible suspicion settled deep in his stomach and he sniffed the air, grimacing at the unmistakeable coppery scent that flooded his mouth, settling on his tongue, heavy and bitter and metallic. Blood.  
“What did he do to you?” he asked, surprised at the anger in his own voice. Jones’ fingers twitched against his.  
“It’s nothing, Dan, honest. I’m alright.”  
The tremor in his voice told a vastly different story.  
“Jones. If he hurt you, I swear to god, I’ll kill the bastard.”  
“It’s nothing-”  
“What did he do?” Dan shouted, regretting it as soon as the words left his mouth. The sound of his yell echoed and ricocheted around the building. He felt fear clutch at his chest as Jones’ breathing quickened.  
“Jones?” he asked softly, trying again to tug himself free but having no success. The younger man sounded like he was having a panic attack and Dan reached uselessly for his hands. Jones clutched at him like he was drowning.  
“Sorry, you don’t have to,” he said, unable to form proper sentences. “Just breathe, Jones. Remember?”  
“…can’t,” choked out Jones, gasping for air between muffled sobs. Dan racked his brains, trying to remember how Jones had brought him back into himself that night in the canteen. It felt like years had passed since then. Hard to believe it was only a few days.  
“With me,” he said at last, remembering the pattern. He counted steadily in his head, listening as Jones’ breathing slowed to match his own. Almost without thinking he realised he was rubbing small circles across Jones’ palms, the same soothing gesture he’d used on himself countless times when he was alone in his room and wishing for someone else to hold him.  
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly, trying his best to calm his friend down. “It’s alright. As long as you’re okay.”  
“He split my lip,” said Jones softly, voice catching and stumbling over the words.  
“Jones-”  
“Kicked me in the face a few times,” continued the younger man flatly. “In the sides. The stomach. He just kept kicking. I blacked out a couple of times. After a while I think he got bored of me. I’d stopped screaming, stopped struggling. Nobody was going to come. There was no fun left for him anymore. If I wasn’t fighting him then he couldn’t feel like he was winning.”  
Dan’s heart was breaking as he listened to his friend recount his injuries. There was no longer any emotion left in his voice. It sounded almost as though he’d forgotten Dan was there, and now he was just telling his sorrows to the universe in the vague, desperate hope that the universe would listen. The profile he was painting of his attacker was terrifying, and Dan was suddenly immensely grateful he’d got away with only a sore shoulder.  
Jones paused, taking several deep breaths. He was about to continue, Dan could tell, but he was interrupted by the sudden sound of footsteps on the hard floor. Dan craned his neck desperately, trying to see who was coming, but the metal cuffs bit into the skin around his wrists and stopped him from moving. Jones gripped his hands tightly, like he was suddenly remembering he was there, and hissed out a quick “Shh!” under his breath. Dan stopped thrashing around and stayed still. The footsteps drew closer, stopping abruptly a couple of metres away.  
“Awake at last, are we?”  
The DCI’s oily tone was unmistakeable, though this time Dan was too busy being scared to think about punching him. He tried to shrink back against the pipe, wishing he could make himself invisible. Jones whimpered quietly, squeezing Dan’s hand, seeking reassurance.  
“Wh- what do you want?” asked Dan, trying his best to sound more confident than he felt, for Jones’ sake if nothing else. In an instant the DCI’s face was mere inches from his own. Dan flinched and tried not to breathe. Malcolm had horrible breath which snaked its way up into Dan’s nose, making him gag.  
“What do I want?” he asked, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Oh, Dan, you’re so naïve. I thought that maybe, after so many years of policing, you’d have learned to be a bit more realistic about things. I want to see you dead.”  
He drew sharply away, standing up straight and leering down at the two men. Dan felt a stab of terror as the light glinted off the long-bladed knife clutched in the DCI’s hand. He was twirling it effortlessly around in his fingers, admiring the way the edge caught the light. For a few moments- though it felt like years- he was lost in his own psychotic little world. Dan watched him carefully, feeling totally helpless.  
“There’s no grand scheme, Mr Ashcroft,” he said at last, slipping the knife away with an evil smile. “There never is. With those girls, perhaps, yes. I can have some fun with them.”  
Jones cried out angrily, and without even looking the DCI flicked his knife downwards. The yell of anger changed abruptly into one of pain as the blade bit into him. Dan went to move forward, but the blade was glinting in Malcolm’s hand again and he cowered back against the pipe. The DCI laughed.  
“Of course. One of those was your friend, wasn’t she, Jones?”  
“She was my sister!” he shouted, and Dan could hear the rage and desperation in his voice. Malcolm’s smile widened.  
“Your sister? Yes, I suppose she rather was. Sweet little Kathy. She was the first, so I suppose I should thank you. If it wasn’t for her I might never have discovered this.”  
He moved away, out of Dan’s line of vision. In his mind’s eye he saw the DCI squatting down in front of Jones, grabbing his chin and forcing him to meet his gaze.  
“You should have seen her beg,” he murmured, sending a shudder down Dan’s back. “You should have heard how she cried. ‘Please, please don’t touch me’,” he laughed, in a cruel, high-pitched impression of a young girl. “Well, I touched her. She fought me at first. I liked that. Liked her spirit. After a while, though, she stopped fighting, and I couldn’t have that.”  
Dan could only imagine what this was doing to Jones. He could hear his breathing, thick and heavy like he was barely holding back tears, but was powerless to do anything to stop it. Malcolm just kept talking. In Dan’s imagination he was playing with the knife as he spoke, tracing it along the young man’s cheek as he reminisced.  
“So like her brother,” finished the DCI, a harsher edge creeping into his voice. Jones cried out in pain. Dan could practically see the tip of the blade twisting into his face, drawing a perfect line of blood from his pale skin.  
“Why us?” he asked, in a last-ditch attempt to make Malcolm leave Jones alone. Sure enough, the man rose to the bait. He walked around until Dan could just barely see him, and he knew he was addressing them both.  
“Why you? Because I don’t like you. You’re interfering, and you will never be a police officer. Anyone with those scars is unfit to serve in the force, scum that you are. I’d rather the people trying to catch me had some dignity left. You’re just pathetic. No, I have my pride.”  
“Dan?” asked Jones, and Dan’s heart sank. “Dan, what’s he mean? What scars?”  
Malcolm practically beamed, a kind of twisted joy radiating from him.  
“Oh dear, haven’t you told him?” he asked. “You’d better, you know. I’m sure he’d feel better about dying if he knew the kind of person he’d been associating with.”  
“No,” muttered Dan. A swift kick to his stomach set him wheezing, and the DCI glared at him.  
“Tell him. Now.”  
“I…” he began, then stopped. He could hear Jones trying to turn and look at him. “I tried to…” he said again, before he was cut off as a sob tore from his chest. Jones sucked in a sharp breath in realisation, and Dan felt tears prickle at his eyes as the younger man’s fingers travelled upwards, fluttering across his wrists until they found the tell-tale ridges there.  
“And he’s got it!” cried the DCI in delight. Somewhere in the distance a pigeon fluttered away, sending flurries of dust down from the rafters. Shame was filling Dan’s veins, just like it had when he was a teenager after coming out, and again just six months before. Tears, searing hot against his skin, spilled from his eyes and traced zigzag lines down his face, but he didn’t make a sound. Jones’ breath hitched and Dan bowed his head, silent sobs shaking his whole body.  
“Dan…” whispered Jones, and the intensity of grief and sympathy in that single word was enough to make Dan feel like he was breaking all over again. The air was thick with things left unsaid, but neither man could figure out which ones deserved to be spoken. The DCI was talking again, and though Dan wasn’t really listening he found himself agreeing with every word that registered.  
“Useless… coward’s way out… never going to escape it… keep trying, maybe next time you’ll succeed.”  
“Don’t,” whispered Jones, his voice sounding tiny and far away. “Don’t listen to him. I’m here, Dan. I’ve got you.”  
“Worthless,” muttered Dan bitterly to himself. He didn’t deserve Jones; he didn’t deserve anyone. The younger man clutched at his hands even tighter.  
“Dan.”  
His tone was insistent, his voice louder, and Dan focused on that, used it to draw himself back in. The DCI paused, and Dan could almost hear the sneer in his voice.  
“Well, isn’t that sweet,” he muttered.  
“Why me, then?” asked Jones, a distraction, drawing the DCI away. Dan squeezed his hand for a moment in thanks. It worked- Malcolm turned on his heel and moved back across to the younger man.  
“Why you? Because you’re a sinful, immoral slut, that’s why.”  
His every word was filled with venom, real hatred creeping into his voice.  
“Even back then I could see it. I followed Kathy, you see, made sure I knew where she’d be when she came to me. And you were there. All the others, they were bad enough, but you…”  
He began to pace, spitting the words out like they were poison. Jones winced with every sentence.  
“Little faggot, all dressed up in your glittery clothes and your darling sister’s makeup. You were destined for this, even back then. But you were young, so I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you’d grow out of it. Clearly that was too much to ask for. Dirty little queer, still trying to pretend that it’s alright to be this way. I should have killed you before, when I had the chance. Still, better late than never.”  
Dan felt Jones flinch and hurriedly interrupted.  
“So you just want to prove that we’re not police officers?”  
He winced inwardly. Playing the fool never worked, not even on TV, but apparently the DCI was worked up enough that he was ready to answer anything so long as it gave him even more reason to be angry.  
“I want to prove that you’re a pair of worthless, suicidal benders who aren’t worth my spit. But if it’s the officer part you’re focused on, I’m sure we can arrange something.”  
A slow grin spread across his face and he reached down, grabbing Dan roughly by the wrist and tearing his hand away from Jones’. There was the sound of metal on metal and then Jones was being dragged upright, the DCI’s knife to his throat. He looked terrible. Dried blood covered his shirt and a large part of his face, his piercing blue eyes meeting Dan’s, pleading. The red stains had even soaked into Dan’s scarf, which Jones was somehow, improbably, still wearing. As Dan watched he stumbled, legs stiff from sitting still so long, and only barely managed to stay on his feet.  
“Let him go!” he shouted, but the DCI just laughed.  
“Oh, I don’t think so, detective.”  
He took his time over the last word, dragging out the syllables and filling each one with contempt.  
“You think you can solve the crime? Fine. In that case, how about a little wager? You have until 11am tomorrow to find me. If you win, you get this lovely little prize.”  
He dragged his knife lightly up Jones’ neck, pressing the point into his chin. The young man stared at Dan and gave a microscopic shake of his head, tears trickling down his cheeks and carving pale tracks through the dried blood. Malcolm grinned.  
“If you lose, however…”  
He trailed off. It didn’t need to be said. With a final smirk he walked away, dragging Jones along with him.  
For a few moments the sound of their footsteps filled the air. Then there was silence once again.  
Dan’s mind whirled as he strained against his cuffs, yelling in frustration. The fear was hitting him late, the adrenaline wearing off and leaving him with nothing but terror. He began to shake as he sat there, alone and afraid. He didn’t know if anyone would find him, and he couldn’t reach his phone. He needed to get out of there, needed to find Jones. For the longest time- perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, he had no way of knowing- he tried desperately to get free, screaming his anger at the empty warehouse, achieving nothing more than startling a few mangy pigeons. Just as he was about to give up he heard a noise from outside, and then several police officers were hurrying towards him. Pingu led the group. Thankfully Nathan was nowhere to be seen.  
“We got a tip-off,” he explained as he unlocked Dan’s cuffs. “Anonymous caller. They said we’d find you here. We need to get you back to the station, get some paramedics to have a look at you-”  
“No time,” said Dan, shaking some of the stiffness from his aching wrists and trying to stand up before his legs gave way beneath him and he collapsed back against the floor. Undeterred, he tried again, using the pipe for support. “Where’s Jones?”  
“He called in sick this morning… Dan, we need to get you back to the station.”  
“Not important,” he growled. Why did nobody understand? Pingu stared at him in shock and confusion.  
“You’re bleeding,” he pointed out. Dan glanced down at his wrists, which had been rubbed raw by the handcuffs. Some patches of skin were merely reddened; others were bleeding quite severely. He shook his sleeves down to cover them.  
“I told you, it doesn’t matter. What do you mean he called in sick?”  
“I asked at reception while you were interviewing that suspect. He phoned the station this morning.”  
Dan nodded, processing the information. So the DCI had planned ahead, made sure to give himself an alibi and make Dan look like a fool. That was it- the DCI.  
“Malcolm,” he blurted, clutching at Pingu’s shirt as his eyes momentarily lost their focus. His head screamed, and for a split second he thought he might pass out, but he regained his control in time to see Pingu looking at him in a mixture of confusion and fear.  
“I’m sorry?”  
“Where’s Malcolm? DCI, bit of a twat, about so tall?” explained Dan, exasperated, indicating with his hand. Pingu shook his head.  
“He- he left for a conference a few hours ago. I don’t understa-”  
Dan pushed him aside and ran from the building, ignoring the attempts of various detectives to stop him and give him various things to eat or drink or put on or swallow. Once outside he squinted, spinning around to try and get his bearings. He had a vague idea of where he was, and, more importantly, he knew which bus would take him home. Fishing in his pockets for change, he hurried off down an alley to a small street.   
For possibly the first time that day, luck was on his side. There was a bus just pulling up to the stop as he arrived. He hopped on, shoving a handful of coins at the driver and muttering his address. The driver peered at him curiously.  
“You alright, mate?” he asked. “Only, you’re looking a bit rough, if you don’t mind me saying so.”  
“Shut up,” muttered Dan, snatching his ticket and flinging himself down into a seat, ignoring the glances he got from the other passengers. As the bus pulled away he ran his fingers again over the scars on his wrists, swallowing the taste of bile in his throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. Like I said, it all got a bit out of hand here.


	11. Ashes to Ashes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For some reason I seem to enjoy putting dream sequences in things. Also writing chapters until midnight the night before exams. That's a habit I should probably break.

Dan had more or less stopped shaking by the time the bus finally pulled up at the top of his street. It felt like the journey had taken hours. Standing up quickly and banging his already-sore head hard on the ceiling- which happened to him far too often, and was the main reason he tried to avoid taking public transport- Dan hurried to the doors. As he left, head bowed, the driver muttered the mandatory “have a nice day, sir,” and Dan couldn’t help the hollow, bitter laugh that escaped him. It was more than a little too late for that.  
Outside the sky was growing dark. It had started raining at some point; a fine, constant drizzle that felt like nothing more than mist but could leave you soaked through in minutes if you weren’t careful. Dan turned up his collar in an attempt to protect against the worst of the weather and reached into his pocket for his keys, but his searching fingers found his phone instead. He pulled it out and instinctively began dialling the number he knew best even though he was all too aware that the call probably wouldn’t be of any help. He pressed the phone to his ear and fumbled again for his keys. This time he found them but, they slipped from his fingers and clattered to the floor. He swore and bent to try and pick them up, but was interrupted by someone finally answering the phone.  
“What is it?” asked the voice on the end of the line, already sounding as though they’d rather the conversation was over. He was more than used to that reaction.  
“Claire?” asked Dan, trying his best to unlock the door with one hand. His sister sighed.  
“Of course it’s me, you prick. This had better be important. I’m already having to cover for you at this stupid warehouse. What did you have to run off for anyway?”  
Dan growled in exasperation as the key slipped again. He nearly dropped the phone and grabbed it hastily, trying not to let frustration get the better of him. He had learned the hard way that Claire did not respond well to shouting.  
“Listen, Claire, you’ve got to believe me here. It’s the DCI. He’s the one that took me, he’s the guy we’ve been after, and now he’s taken Jones and I’ve got until tomorrow to find him.”  
There was a long pause. Dan decided to fill it by trying the door again, relieved when it finally clicked open. The hallway beyond was a mess, but it was warm and dry and, perhaps most importantly, on the other side of a door which he could lock against the rest of the world for as long as he liked. As he slipped inside he heard Claire begin to laugh. Anger bubbled up inside him.  
“It’s not funny-” he began, but his sister cut him off.  
“It’s fucking ridiculous is what it is. I mean, you’re actually trying to tell me that your new boss is a fucking murderer? _Seriously_ , Dan? Look, I get that shagging your partner at work is the kind of thing that you’d get in trouble for, but you don’t get to retaliate by claiming your boss is a psycho. There’s such a thing as overreacting.”  
Dan frowned, anger and confusion flickering across his face in more or less equal measure. He locked the door smoothly, putting the chain across the door as an extra layer of security. Normally he’d have called himself paranoid, seeing as nobody in his neighbourhood had anything much worth stealing anyway, but he felt like just this once he had pretty good reason to be.  
“What?” he spat after several seconds of silence, grinding the heel of his palm into his forehead to try and alleviate his headache. “No, listen- first of all, I’m not bumming him.”  
“Sure you’re not,” replied Claire sarcastically. God, Dan hated that tone of voice. It was the one she’d always used when they were growing up, when she’d wanted him to know that not only was Mum going to hear about this, Claire knew exactly what excuse he was going to use and didn’t buy it for a single second.  
“It’s none of your fucking business anyway,” snapped Dan. “Besides, the whole office knows you’re sleeping with Nathan.”  
It was little more than a stab in the dark, but the stunned silence coming from the other end of the line told him he’d been right. Dan allowed himself a moment of satisfaction at that. It wasn’t often he managed to one-up anyone, least of all his sister.  
“Fuck off,” said Claire eventually. “Fuck off, and go rescue your boyfriend on your own.”  
“I told you, it was-”  
“No it wasn’t! This isn’t one of your Sherlock Holmes stories, Dan. There’s no arch-nemesis, no corrupt policeman. Maybe it’s time you grew up and learned to admit to your mistakes.”  
The line went dead. Dan stared numbly at the phone for a few seconds in disbelief. He hadn’t been hoping for much, but that had been even worse than he’d expected. He scrolled quickly through the rest of his contacts, hoping that someone else he knew could help, but the few remaining numbers he had on his phone either belonged to his parents, the station, or Jones. Two of those hated him. The third was the reason he needed them not to.  
Looking around his tiny flat, Dan suddenly realised there was really nothing he could do. All the evidence they’d gathered was back at the station, where the DCI could get his slimy little hands on it any time he liked. The anger which had flared inside him was fading quickly, only to be replaced by a crushing sensation of hopelessness. He’d lost. He had no evidence, no allies, and no time. He didn’t know what was happening. For all he knew, Jones could already be dead.  
A sob rose unexpectedly in his chest at the thought, but now the idea had entered his mind he had no way of stopping it. Hundreds of images of Jones rose up behind his eyes, unwanted but impossible to ignore. The younger man tied up, tears in his eyes and a gag across his mouth, struggling to get free as a shadowy figure approached him. Raven hair matted with blood, red against black against pale white skin as a slim body fell to the floor. A crumpled heap of cloth and bone where once his friend had stood, now gone forever, the spark lost from his eyes.  
Dan was vaguely aware that he’d made his way into the bedroom and sat down heavily, ancient springs groaning beneath his weight. He buried his head in his hands, trying to block out the flood of images, but they just kept coming. His heartbeat was rushing in his ears, but somehow it didn’t feel real, like the body he was in belonged to a stranger. He felt a bit sick.  
Suddenly another image of Jones surfaced in his imagination, though this one wasn’t so much a stray thought as a memory. Long fingers sliding across his hand, holding him tightly, grounding him as he sobbed beneath cheap fluorescent lighting. The sight of the familiar scarf around the other man’s neck, oddly comforting. Jones’ eyes, always so unnaturally blue, fixed intently on him. His gentle, encouraging smile. A low, reassuring murmur as Jones tried to encourage him, bring him back into himself, make him feel as though he was worth something. If Dan concentrated he could almost conjure up the words in his mind.  
“Cheer up, you idiot,” the image of Jones said fondly. “You’re better than this. Get up off your arse, get some evidence together, and come and find me. You’re my mentor for a reason, you know.”  
Dan focused on the image in his mind, nodding with every sentence. Renewed determination began to build up inside his chest, and he took a deep breath before slowly opening his eyes. This was a case, just like any other. He’d been a detective for years. He knew how to deal with cases. Coffee first, that was the important thing. Strong black coffee. After that all he needed was a wall and some chairs. Provided he could make himself forget this was about Jones, he could more or less solve it on autopilot.  
As he walked into the kitchen to check off item one on the list another thought occurred to him and he paused, frowning distractedly. Evidence. He also definitely needed evidence, and he didn’t have any. He was pretty confident he could work around that, though. He would have to if he was going to get Jones back in time. He took off his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair, pausing when he noticed something flutter from the pocket. It looked like a piece of paper. Frowning in confusion and painfully aware of the time limit he was under, Dan bent to pick it up. As soon as he touched the roughened edges he knew what it was. The photograph of Verity which the Castles had given them.  
He unfolded it and stared for several long seconds at the image. She looked so alive, so happy. How could someone destroy that? Dan turned around, coffee momentarily abandoned as he scanned the flat for wall space. Eventually he settled on using the bathroom door. Nowhere else had easy access without him having to clean up, and he didn’t have the time to do anything other than work. He stuck the photograph firmly in the centre of the door, nodded in affirmation, and went to pour himself a coffee.  
Almost six hours passed, and still Dan was getting nowhere. He was sitting on a chair dragged through from the kitchen, surrounded by scraps of paper and various half-drunk mugs of coffee. The door was covered in sheets of paper detailing the evidence he and Jones had collected, mostly written from memory. There was a map with a line on it illustrating the rough pattern of the crimes, and it was this Dan had been staring at for almost half an hour. There was something important there, he could feel it, but the exhaustion he’d built up over the previous few nights was finally catching up with him and his mind was too fuzzy for him to be able to focus properly. He glared harder, as though somehow he could intimidate the sheet of paper enough for it to give up its secrets. The rest of the world seemed to fade away out of focus-  
 _-or maybe it was him coming in to focus, because all of a sudden Dan was almost hyperaware of his own body. The heart beating in his chest was counting out a steady rhythm, 60 beats per minute, one every second, slicing up the time into neat little sections to be filed away and never seen again. His breathing, too, was slow and steady. He was slumped over in his chair, and he tried to move._  
 _He sat up, and he didn’t._  
 _The body in the chair didn’t move. Dan was staring down at the back of his own head, watching himself sleep. It was distinctly upsetting, but to him it seemed as though he was somehow disconnected from that sensation as well. He felt like he was a puppeteer, trying desperately to control his body while his mind wandered, quite literally._  
 _Someone else had entered the room, though Dan couldn’t remember the door being opened. He turned around, surprised at how easy it was to move when he wasn’t having to avoid breaking a mug, or possibly a limb. Standing behind him was Jones, except he didn’t quite look real. He looked the same as he had that night in the canteen, right down to the details on Dan’s scarf, but somehow he seemed semi-transparent as well. In short, he looked the way Dan felt._  
 _“Alright,” he grinned, by way of greeting. Dan laughed, suddenly secure in the knowledge that everything would be okay. Something was nagging at him, though, and he moved forward slightly before hesitating and glancing at his partner for permission._  
 _“Can I..?” he asked, and Jones smiled and nodded, holding out his hand. Dan took it, and even though he felt as unreal as a wisp of smoke the younger man’s grip was firm and reassuring. Dan tugged on his hand gently and Jones drifted forward- Dan had to look down to check and yes, they were floating, but somehow that didn’t seem strange- into his arms. Wrapped up in Jones properly, Dan felt the worry in his chest ease away. This was okay. This was how it was supposed to end._  
 _Something wasn’t quite right about it, though. He could feel Jones’ chest rising and falling against him, but there was no breath coming from his parted lips. He was certain that he should be able to smell something, too, most likely a mixture of hair gel, chocolate and paint. There was nothing. There wasn’t even any warmth in the embrace, not really._  
 _What was going on?_  
 _The younger man looked up and saw Dan staring quizzically at him, and pressed a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. Dan moved clumsily to reciprocate- it seemed that even when he was literally floating there were still areas where he would never be coordinated- but all too soon Jones was pulling away._  
 _“Listen, Dan, we don’t have a lot of time,” he said, looking intently at the taller man. “You’ve got everything you need, but-”_  
 _He broke off, stiffening and gasping as though in pain. As Dan looked on, helpless, some of the colour faded from his body._  
 _“Jones? What’s going on?” he asked. Jones shook his head._  
 _“I told you, we don’t have a lot of time. He’s hurting me. But he won’t do anything, not until tomorrow. He promised. He’ll stick to that.”_  
 _Dan nodded. It made sense. Most serial killers had a code, of sorts. They viewed it as a game, and it was only fair play to give the police a chance to catch them._  
 _“So how do I find you? Where are you?”_  
 _Jones was fading quickly now, and this time when Dan reached for his hand his fingers met nothing more substantial than air. Nonetheless, Jones still found it in him somewhere to smile._  
 _“Oh, just listen to yourself for once, will you?” he said with a smirk. Dan tried to ask him something else, but the image was gone. He felt himself drifting away from his own body and scrambled desperately to find something to cling on to, but there was nothing. He was shrinking, spiralling, falling-_  
-and waking up, the insistent ringing of his phone a cue to jerk upright so suddenly he nearly fell off his chair. He glanced down at the caller ID, fully expecting it to be someone trying to sell him something. Instead he was greeted with a dark, slightly grainy photo of Jones grinning at the camera. The younger man must have changed it when they were in the canteen together; Dan recognised the view from the window. For some reason that thought caused his heart to stop in his chest for a moment. He snatched the phone up and pressed it to his ear.  
“Hello?” he said, terrified of what he might hear. Relief flooded him when he heard Jones’ voice answer him, a little weak and shaky but definitely alive.  
“D- Dan?”  
“Yeah. Yeah, I- I’m here, it’s me,” he managed. There was a pause, filled only with the sound of Jones’ laboured breathing.  
“He- he says are you alone?” asked Jones.  
“Yes.”  
“Really? Because he’s-”  
Jones’ voice broke, and Dan could hear the terror there as he continued.  
“-fuck, Dan, he’s got a gun, you’ve got to help me.”  
“I am,” he promised fiercely. “I’m working on it.”  
The thought of the DCI, all smooth talk and slimy attitude, pointing a gun at Jones’ head was nearly enough to break Dan, but he clung on. He needed to, for Jones if for nobody else.  
“He says I’m to t-tell you that I’ve got-”  
He gasped, sucking in the air greedily like he knew how few breaths he might have left, then continued. Dan could hear in his voice that he was crying.  
“-five h-h-hours left. And that you’re to come and f- find me.”  
His words broke off in a sob, and Dan’s heart clenched. Jones’ breathing was heavy and kept catching in his chest between sobs.  
“Please, Dan,” he pleaded. “Please come and get me. I can’t tell you where I- he’s got a gun, he’ll kill me if you don’t get here.”  
The harsh sound of someone being slapped echoed through the speakers, and as Jones cried out in pain Dan winced in sympathy. After a few seconds the DCI spoke into the phone. His oily voice was made even slimier by the distance between them, or perhaps it was the knowledge of the kind of person he was, of the things he’d done to Jones and to who knows how many girls. Either way, Dan was long past the point of wanting to punch him. He didn’t think he’d be able to rest until he saw blood.  
“I think that should be enough, don’t you, Dan?” he said, ever-present smirk audible even through the phone. “You heard the man. You have exactly four hours and fifty-seven minutes. I suggest you make good use of them.”  
With that, he was gone. The line went dead, leaving Dan with nothing but a dialling tone and a wall covered in pieces of a jigsaw he couldn’t quite fit together. He glanced down at the screen to see if what Malcolm had said was true, though he knew it would be. A serial killer of Malcolm’s calibre would never deal in hyperbole. He was an organised man, and dangerously intelligent as well. None of what he said might be the truth, but it was all guaranteed to be accurate.  
His phone read 6:03 am. The clock was ticking.


	12. Heroes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not even going to apologise. I had far too much fun writing this.

Dan’s mind was reeling as he pored over the papers again, tossing them over his shoulders as he discarded each one. Something Jones had said- or, technically, something his own subconscious had said, but it had sounded so like Jones that it had almost hurt- was still nagging at him, itching at him like a word that was just at the tip of his tongue but somehow out of reach. It had been over three hours and he still couldn’t work out what it was. He let out a loud cry of frustration and swept his arm across the table, sending papers flying to the floor just like he had on the day he and Jones first met. This time there was no soft grin looking back at him. There might never be.  
A loud knocking on the door disrupted his concentration even further. He wanted to ignore it, wanted to bury himself in the papers and hope that somehow he could buy enough time to work something out, but the banging was insistent and before long there was a loud voice accompanying it.  
“Ashcroft? Open up, you bastard, I know you’re in there.”  
Dan groaned, covering his face with his hands and taking several deep breaths. On the other side of the door his landlord continued to yell, and Dan was suddenly grateful he’d put the chain on. He was pretty sure the landlord had lost the master key several months previously but at that point it was better not to risk it. He looked back down at the evidence, seizing a piece of paper at random and flattening it out on the table. The door rattled again.  
“You can’t stay inside forever, Dan. You’ve got until noon to sod off, or I’m gonna call the police.”  
“I am the fucking police!” yelled Dan in response, frustration getting the better of him for a moment. The landlord seemed to pause to consider this.  
“Well in that case you’ll have to explain to all your colleagues why they’re having to drag you out of my building,” he said eventually, a note of smugness to his words. Dan couldn’t really think of a response to that which didn’t involve gestures so he chose to ignore it, looking down at the paper before him. He’d picked up the map from earlier, the one with the ragged circle connecting the cities, and the nagging itch in his head grew more insistent. This was important, he knew it was. If he could only think properly he was sure he could make the pieces fall into place somehow.  
Footsteps from outside told him that the landlord was moving away. He would be back, Dan knew, but that didn’t really matter to him. At that moment all he really cared about was the temporary reprieve he’d been granted. He tried to think back to what the dream-Jones had said, right before he vanished, but every time he reached for it the image- or did it count as a memory?- of Jones kissing him surfaced in his mind, pushing all Dan’s other thoughts to one side. At the time it had felt so real that it ached to think about it now, knowing that the younger man was only hours from death. Dan forced himself to focus.  
“Listen to yourself for once,” he breathed. His eyes snapped open and he stared at the map with renewed determination. He’d said something when they first put the map together, something important. He looked up towards the ceiling as though grimy white paint could somehow hold the answer. He’d been practically delirious at the time, sleep deprived and on a strange kind of high from the rush of solving the puzzle. The memory was definitely there, but it was blurred and fuzzy like an old photograph. He could just about make out the shapes of the thought, but nothing of the details.  
The key was in front of him. Dan’s mouth dropped open ever so slightly in realisation. The answer, the circle, had been staring him in the face the whole time. Everything about these abductions- the recent ones, at least- had been about closure, tying up all the loose ends, finishing what had been started. Malcolm wouldn’t be able to let go until he’d managed to end it all exactly as it had begun twenty years before. It was a long shot, but Dan knew in his gut that he was right. He’d find them at the old foster home.  
Grabbing his coat and downing another mug of coffee in one gulp, Dan sprinted to the door. He was pretty sure he’d never moved through the building so quickly, for once in his life not caring that his footsteps were echoing noisily around the walls and probably drawing quite a few angry mutters from the other residents. He was about to be kicked out anyway, it wasn’t like he had anything more to lose.  
 _You could lose Jones_ , supplied his asshole of a conscience, but he overrode it. He wasn’t going to lose Jones, because he was certain of where to find him and there was still- he checked his watch as he ran- an hour and a half left on the DCI’s time limit. Ditchfield Crescent was forty minutes away, forty-five at most. He could make it.  
As he rounded the final corner he collided with his landlord. The short man was already furious and this did nothing to help his temper. He grabbed Dan’s wrist in a surprisingly strong grip, causing him to come to an undignified skidding halt.  
“Where the hell do you think you’re going, Ashcroft?” he asked.  
A hundred different potential replies crowded in Dan’s mind, ranging from cold sarcasm to just decking him. He settled for a happy medium and wrenched his arm away.  
“Oh, fuck off,” he told the short man, who was now almost incandescent with rage. Nobody ever stood up to him. He was too used to being a small-time bully to know quite how to react to this. Dan wanted to be smug about that, revel in his victory for a while, but he didn’t have the time. Before the landlord had time to collect himself enough to come after him Dan was climbing into the car and driving away.  
The radio crackled and spat as it settled on a station. The thing seemed to have a mind of its own sometimes, randomly playing channels that Dan hadn’t even known existed, much less actually considered listening to. This time it had decided to play some classic rock station. Dan wasn’t paying much attention, but his heart nearly stopped when he realised what song it was.  
“Who let Pink Floyd become classic rock, anyway?” he muttered, burying his grief in anger for the time being and pressing his foot down harder against the accelerator.  
He reached Ditchfield Crescent in less than half an hour, managing by some miracle to avoid coming across any police cars on the way. The street was all but deserted when he pulled up outside Jones’ old foster home, the only person in sight an old lady in her back garden. She looked up in surprise when his car came roaring around the corner, and he quickly tried to slow to a more reasonable speed.  
“Can I help you?” asked the lady as he got out of the car, looking a little concerned for him. Dan wondered what he must look like. He hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in days, and he was still wearing the same clothes from the day before. He probably looked a little unstable. To be frank, he wasn’t always entirely sure that he wasn’t.  
“I’m, uh, I’m here to meet a friend,” he said. It wasn’t quite a lie, to be fair. It was just very far from the truth. The old lady looked at him in sympathy, which worried him. That was far from the usual reaction he got. He must have looked even worse than he’d thought.  
“Oh, I’m sorry, love. They’re away on holiday this week.”  
Dan forced a smile onto his face even as his mind whirled. So the DCI must have known somehow that the house would be empty, and that was why he’d made him work with Jones. He wanted them on the same team so they’d be in position just when he wanted them to be.  
“Yeah, I know the person house-sitting,” he lied, the words flowing smoothly from his tongue. If there was one thing he was good at it was thinking up excuses. With that he stepped up to the door and knocked twice, muttering a silent prayer to a god he didn’t believe in. If there was no answer then he didn’t know what he’d do. He didn’t have any other leads, and there was only an hour left of the time limit. This could be his only hope of saving Jones.  
“It’s unlocked!” called a voice from somewhere within the house, one which Dan recognised and loathed in an instant. The woman smiled warmly.  
“Looks like your friend is there after all,” she said. “Have a nice day.”  
“You too,” said Dan, hurriedly pushing his way into the house.  
Inside it was dark, especially in contrast to the bright light outside. Dan waited for a moment to allow his eyes time to adjust, just in case there was anything unpleasant waiting for him. He’d been worrying about the possibility of tripwires or hidden traps, but there didn’t seem to be anything there other than some scattered toys. Dan didn’t know anything about the people who owned the house but he could hazard a pretty good guess that they had at least one toddler. Everywhere he looked there was evidence of a tiny troublemaker, with teddy bears lying here and there on the floor and crayon lines making abstract patterns on the walls.  
He walked up the stairs slowly, trying not to make too much noise. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was trying to be stealthy- after all, he had knocked- but it felt more natural under the circumstances than charging in all guns blazing.  
That was the other thing Dan had been trying not to think about. His gun, pressed flush against his back where he’d tucked it into the waistband of his trousers, was like ice against his skin and seemed to be growing colder rather than warmer with every passing second. He’d been reluctant to pick it up, and even the simple act of checking it was loaded had made him feel sick and dizzy, but on the other hand it would have been madness to show up unarmed. He wanted to avoid shooting if possible but he could never account for everything.  
He reached the top of the stairs and was faced with a chaotic hallway. There were several doors on that floor but he headed immediately for the one furthest from him. Every other room had the lights out and the door closed, the house shutting down while its inhabitants were away, but from that room there was not only light but a voice, the sound floating easily through the half-open door. Malcolm was talking in a low murmur, teasing Jones.  
“This was your old room, wasn’t it?” he was saying. “Not only yours; there were so many of you here. Most of them grew up normal. I hope you realise what a disappointment you must have been.”  
Jones said nothing. The DCI didn’t seem to notice, or, if he did, simply didn’t care. He twirled his knife, twisting the blade so it flashed, and kept talking.  
“Only an hour left, you know. He’s running out of time. It’s a shame, really; I actually want him to come for you, a last-minute rescue that will, of course, go horribly wrong. I don’t know why, but I feel like killing you both would be so much more satisfying if I do it just after you admit you’re in love.”  
Dan could hear the sneer in the DCI’s voice on the last word, and felt something dark coil in his stomach as he watched the kidnapper spit on the floor in disgust. Jones spoke up then, voice cracked and soft but unmistakeably defiant, and it took all of Dan’s concentration not to run to him there and then.  
“So what if I like him? I don’t go around murdering people just because I don’t like the person they’re snogging on their days off. That’s fuckin’ messed up.”  
Dan watched through the gap in the door as the DCI hissed angrily, darting in close to Jones and pressing his long knife to the young man’s arm. Jones was tied to a chair with his hands behind his back, blood staining his clothes and skin. He had clearly been crying, and there were some stains mixed in with the blood that Dan definitely didn’t want to know the origin of, but there was a steely glint in his eyes and something in the stubborn set of his jaw told Dan that he’d reached the point where nothing could hurt him any more. As Malcolm pressed the tip of the blade to Jones’ arm, breaking the skin and drawing forth a tiny droplet of blood, the younger man simply gritted his teeth and stared straight ahead. Dan took a deep breath as quietly as possible and stepped into the room. The DCI whirled around, a strange mixture of surprise and delight on his face.  
“Dan!” he said cheerily. “You made it, I am so glad.”  
Dan didn’t rise to it, instead looking around the room to weigh up the risks. The DCI had his knife and judging by his actions so far he knew how to use it. There was a gun lying on one of the side tables, with a watch lying next to it. Presumably this was to measure out Jones’ time with. The room they were in was clearly the master bedroom of the house, and Jones was sitting in a wooden chair next to the large bed. The window was closed and, given the presence of young children in the house, most likely locked.  
“Let him go,” said Dan, trying to go for a warning tone but fairly sure it came across as though he was pleading. Jones was trying to catch his attention but Dan couldn’t bring himself to look over for fear he would break. He stood up straight and stared straight at Malcolm, who looked incredulously at him for a few moments before laughing.  
“Of course! I don’t break my promises, you know.”  
He moved towards Jones, fingers hovering over the ropes as mischief sparkled in his eyes. Dan had never seen him look this energized, and suddenly the manic kind of energy he’d felt when trying to get inside Malcolm’s mind made sense. The man was insane, obsessive over his strange, twisted little code of honour. He looked back up at Dan with a smile.  
“Of course, this does mean you have to let me walk free.”  
“What?”  
Dan’s hand went instinctively to his waistband, reaching for his gun, but he stopped himself. He didn’t want to risk it. At the last second he changed the movement and straightened the hem of his shirt, holding his empty hands out in front of him in a placating gesture.  
“When did we agree that?” he asked, fighting to keep his voice level. The DCI’s expression clouded instantly and he moved away from the chair, stepping towards Dan with a murderous look in his eye.  
“If you solve the case, you get your prize,” he said, not breaking eye contact with Dan, who was backing away. He came up against a wall and stopped moving, staring at Malcolm in terror.  
“We never,” continued the DCI threateningly, “agreed that you got me as well. So you’re letting me go. Do you understand?”  
Dan couldn’t take it any longer. He could feel Malcolm’s breath against his cheek as he moved ever closer, pinning Dan against the wall, and with a faintly embarrassing sort of strangled cry he grabbed his gun and held it out in front of him. The cold metal felt strange and unforgiving in his hands and Dan tried to let the muscle memory take over. You hold it here, bracing against your other hand like so, and whatever you do you can’t let him see the tremors in your arms as you fight not to look them in the eye. It all came back to him in a terrifying instant, and for a moment Dan was more scared of his own capabilities than those of the DCI.  
The kidnapper reeled back in surprise, but the blade he carried was already darting up to point at Dan’s chest. They stood still for a few long moments, frozen in time. The DCI broke the silence.  
“Go on,” he said with a smirk. “Let’s find out who can hit first.”  
Dan’s fingers trembled. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jones rocking in his chair, making no noise on the carpeted floor. Slowly, painstakingly so, the younger man dragged himself over towards the bedside table. Dan understood in an instant what he was planning and even as fear flooded him he was accepting it. It was the only way. Straightening his back and looking defiantly at Malcolm, a hint of a smile somehow found its way onto his lips.  
“I’ve got all day,” he said. Malcolm laughed.  
“So have I. Let’s see who gets bored first, shall we?”  
Jones had reached the table, his searching fingers just brushing against the gun resting there. Dan held his breath, keeping the younger man in his peripheral vision while making it seem as though his focus was on the DCI. Jones edged the gun closer with every brush of his fingers, and after three or four attempts he caught hold of it properly. Panic flickered over his face and it occurred to Dan that this was probably the first time Jones had even held a gun. He stared steadily into his friend’s eyes, offering reassurance and trying his best to make a wordless promise.  
 _It’s alright_ , he wanted to say. _I love you too. I forgive you._  
Jones shook his head, and Dan knew he was screaming inside. He’d be firing blind. He’d never even tried to shoot a gun before. The whole thing was impossible.  
The DCI’s eyes flickered and Dan knew that another second would be all it took until he realised what had happened. He looked Jones straight in the eyes and nodded once, almost imperceptibly.  
The world seemed to slow as Dan took a deep breath. The DCI turned around, fury twisting his face into a snarl. Jones spun in his chair, finger tightening around the trigger of Malcolm’s gun as he pointed it towards the two men, and Dan shut his eyes tightly.  
There was an ear-splitting bang.


	13. Life on Mars?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to have a little ramble, but I'll wait until you're done reading.

The impact knocked the air from Dan’s lungs and sent him crashing painfully to the floor, but even as he hit the ground he was aware that he didn’t seem to be dying. That was a pleasant surprise. He lay still for a few more seconds with his eyes screwed shut, just in case death had stopped to ask for directions or something. Still there was nothing. He was in pain, but not the sharp, stabbing kind of pain he would have expected of being shot. This was more crushing, a bruise rather than a puncture.  
He heard Jones whimper, and there was a soft thud as the gun slipped from his hands and fell to the floor.  
“Dan?” he said quietly, his voice cracking. Dan opened one eye and yelped in shock.  
He was pinned to the floor beneath the DCI, trapped beneath his cooling body. Blood, hot and sticky, covered the floor and Dan scrambled to get away from it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jones let out a single, quiet sob, sagging in his chair as relief flooded him. Dan was frozen for a moment, staring down at himself, at his clothes covered in another man’s blood. He felt dizzy. For a few terrifying seconds he couldn’t move, but the quiet sobbing from Jones eventually registered properly and he hurried over to the younger man, untying his wrists and helping him to his feet. Jones swayed suddenly, looking like he was about to collapse. Dan caught him under the arms and half-carried him over to the bed.  
“You okay?” he asked quietly, gently taking Jones’ wrists in his hands and rubbing small, soothing circles against the bruises there.  
“Is… is he..?” asked Jones quietly instead of replying, nodding towards the DCI. Dan shushed him.  
“Don’t look at it,” he said. He held Jones’ gaze, keeping his eyes away from the body on the floor, fighting not to let himself drown in the shimmering blue. After a few seconds, when Jones seemed a little steadier, he tried to withdraw his grip. The younger man clutched desperately at his fingers.  
“Don’t,” he whispered. Dan squeezed his hands briefly in reassurance.  
“I’m just going to call the station,” he said, trying to keep his voice even and steady. Jones nodded.  
“Tell them 64 Rowan Grove,” he said. “It’s where he- the girls, they’re alive-”  
Jones’ voice was losing its edge, tremors running through him as the delayed shock and adrenaline filled him. Dan recognised the signs. He dialled the station as quickly as possible, swearing under his breath and watching Jones out of the corner of his eye while the phone rang.  
“Yes, hello?” said a voice after what seemed like an eternity. Dan never thought he’d be so happy to hear the receptionist’s bored drawl.  
“This is DI Dan Ashcroft. We’ve got an officer down and another in need of medical attention.” He paused then, looking down at the body of the DCI. “Admittedly,” he added, “the officer down was trying to kill quite a lot of people. And has, in fact, killed quite a lot of people. So don’t worry about him.”  
He could almost hear the shock on the receptionist’s face, but he didn’t quite have it in him to clarify. Instead he simply told her the two addresses and hung up, sitting down beside Jones. The younger man was whimpering softly, hugging his knees close to his chest and breathing heavily. Dan reached out hesitantly, suddenly shy, and put a hand on Jones’ arm. The young man jumped, staring at him with wide eyes, and then suddenly he was clinging to Dan as tightly as possible, sobbing.  
Dan didn’t know what to do. He stiffened in shock, then the scent of hair gel and blood hit his nose, so real and immediate that it hurt, and he let out a gasp. Fighting back tears of his own, Dan slipped his arms carefully around Jones’ waist.  
“I thought I was gonna die,” muttered Jones against Dan’s shoulder. “I thought you weren’t gonna come.”  
“Hey there,” replied Dan with a strained smile, carding his fingers through the younger man’s hair. Here and there his hands came into contact with clumps of dried blood, and he smoothed through them as best he could, feeling Jones relax against him. “Of course I was going to come. I’m here, aren’t I? I’ve got you.”  
His voice wavered, much to his shame, and he buried his face in Jones’ hair for a moment.  
“I’ve got you,” he repeated in a whisper. Jones’ hands were making small, exploratory movements across Dan’s back, like he was memorising him. Long fingers traced the curve of his spine, the shape of every muscle there, and a shiver ran through Dan at the touch. He couldn’t bring himself to speak, content for the moment to simply enjoy the silent reassurance of the man sitting next to him. If he’d had the choice, he never would have moved away. As it was he knew this wouldn’t last. He was also painfully aware that he was probably overthinking it and took a deep breath, letting the world outside of them fade away. In that moment all that existed was the bed and the man curled beside him on it.  
“I love you a bit,” said Jones after a while, hands never ceasing their movements. The statement was made so plainly, so without preamble or adornment that Dan almost wondered if he’d actually spoken.  
It took Dan several attempts to get enough air into his lungs to form a reply. He hadn’t ever loved anyone before, he didn’t think. For a while he was convinced he just didn’t know how. He liked the sex, but everyone he’d ever been with had been little more than a one-night stand. This was different. He could see himself waking up beside Jones, in an odd, confused sort of way. He could picture them spending, maybe not the rest of their lives- he was always too scared to deal in absolutes- but certainly a very long time together, kicking about in a slightly dysfunctional sort of way. He wanted to make Jones smile, wanted him to laugh and wanted to be there if he cried so that he could make it all okay again.  
With all of this crowded into his head, Dan could barely think. Eventually one clear idea dropped into his mind and, like a pebble thrown into a pool, pushed the abstract, floating thoughts aside. He pressed himself closer to Jones, feeling his slim frame curl up against him, driven by a mutual need for comfort, for safety.  
“I love you,” whispered Dan. The words felt like a kick in the stomach, like he’d been holding the phrase locked away for so long that it physically pained him to let go of it, but with it came relief. Jones pulled away slightly, staring at him with wide, shining blue eyes, and Dan couldn’t help himself. He leaned in, cupping the younger man’s cheek and pressing their lips together. Jones responded at once, pressing back against him and moving his grip to Dan’s shoulders. The kiss was relatively chaste, all things considered, but when Dan finally broke away he was so mixed up that he couldn’t think straight. He settled for staring into Jones’ eyes as though the younger man could do his thinking for him.  
Jones wasn’t having any of it. He kissed Dan again, hard, a desperate collision of mouths which sent the taller man falling backwards. Jones landed half on top of him, nipping playfully at Dan’s lower lip in a way that made his stomach twist in pleasure. Jones was murmuring Dan’s name like a prayer against his lips, over and over again until it stopped feeling like his name and more like a thousand different declarations of feeling. He wanted more than anything to submit to Jones, to let him take control of where things were going, but he couldn’t. The police were on their way.  
“We can’t,” he gasped out, but his train of thought was momentarily derailed by Jones mouthing at his neck. He struggled to get back on track.  
“Jones. We- they’ll catch us, it’s not right,” he protested, pushing the smaller man gently away and sitting up. Jones slipped off the bed and stood looking at him, a mixture of eagerness and embarrassment on his face.  
“Yeah, you’re right,” he said. Then, almost as an afterthought, he added another word. Short and sweet.  
“Shit.”  
He looked around the room, gaze raking over everything from the watch still resting on the table to the body of the DCI in a pool of congealing blood. The colour was draining from his cheeks but not, Dan noticed, from his lips, making them look even more red and swollen. Dan felt a kick of pride. He’d done that.  
He stood up, putting an arm around Jones’ waist.  
“I’m here,” he said quietly. “We did what we had to. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Trust me, I’ve been there. I’ve got you.”  
Dan wasn’t entirely sure which of them his words were meant to reassure. Seeing the corpse had almost been enough to set him off again, and he could still feel the faint, swirling darkness in his head, but he had it under control. He did.  
Jones looked at him, a hint of fear in his expression.  
“Dan?” he said. “You are gonna stay with me, aren’t you?”  
“Of course I am,” replied Dan. He hadn’t thought about the answer, but he meant it. He still couldn’t quite pin down what it was he liked so much about the younger man, but he was certain he didn’t want him to leave his side. Jones looked uncertain, so Dan pressed a quick kiss to his forehead.  
“Promise,” he murmured against Jones’ hairline, pressing their foreheads together. Jones smiled and let his eyes flicker shut, and Dan followed suit. He could have stayed there for hours, but sirens came screaming down the street and Dan jumped away.  
“Come on,” he said, shoving his hands in his pockets just so he could keep them off Jones. “Let’s go and meet them.”  
They walked out onto the street to see several patrol cars as well as an ambulance driving around the corner. Everything blurred a little after that. Jones was whisked away to the ambulance, where paramedics fussed over him and cleaned him up. Dan tried to watch, just to keep an eye on his partner, but there were people who wanted to talk to him as well. Claire was there, and she’d nodded in his direction. Dan took that as a sign of affection. It was probably all he was going to get. It was one of the few things he and his sister had in common; neither of them had ever been all that good when it came to expressing emotion.  
“Dan?” asked a voice from somewhere behind him, and he whirled to see Pingu standing behind him. He seemed a little more confident than Dan was used to seeing him, and even smiled as he walked forward. “Can I have a word?”  
A little taken aback, Dan nodded.  
“Yeah.”  
Pingu led him away from the main group of people, over to where Dan had parked his car earlier. He glanced up and noticed the old lady from before standing looking out of her window.  
“Could you do me a favour?” asked Dan, before Pingu had the chance to speak. “Could you get someone- not one of the idiots- to go and have a word with her, tell her what happened?”  
Pingu tilted his head quizzically.  
“Can I ask why?”  
“I just feel like she should know,” explained Dan vaguely. If he was honest, he wasn’t entirely sure himself. Pingu seemed to consider this for a few seconds.  
“Okay,” he said at last. “But that’s not what I needed to talk to you about. The thing is, given that Malcolm was-”  
“-mental,” put in Dan, completing the sentence for him. Pingu nodded.  
“Exactly. Which means that, if you want, you don’t have to work with Jones any more. Technically we can now dismiss anything he said on the grounds that he wasn’t in a fit state of mind to make judgements like that.”  
“No.”  
Dan surprised even himself at how quickly the word slipped out. He tried to think of a further explanation but came up short.  
“No,” he said again. “I- I want him to stay.”  
Pingu shrugged. Dan was surprised that he didn’t question him further, but then remembered that it was Pingu he was talking to. The man had been pushed around for so long that he knew just how important it was to respect boundaries.  
“Okay. Just so you know that it’s an option.”  
“What gives you the authority to tell me this?” asked Dan after a moment’s pause, just before Pingu could walk away. The young man smiled.  
“I, uh, applied for a promotion. I didn’t get the one I wanted, but with Malcolm gone there’s a chance I might get the job here.”  
Dan stared at him for a moment, surprised to find himself smiling.  
“Good,” he said at last. “Don’t let Nathan talk you out of it, will you?”  
Pingu smiled, a small chuckle escaping him. Dan was fairly sure that it was the first time he’d heard Pingu smile.  
“Don’t worry. I won’t.”  
He walked away, back into the crowd, with a hint of authority to his footsteps. Dan shook his head slowly and made his way back to Jones, who was sitting alone in the back of the ambulance.  
“The world is a strange place, Jones,” he said as he approached. Jones looked up at him with a grin.  
“Hey, Dan,” he said, motioning for him to come and sit beside him. Dan obliged.  
“Now I know it’s probably not that important given what just happened,” said Jones carefully, “but I’ve got something to give you.”  
Dan looked at him in confusion as the younger man dug around in his pockets, pulling out a couple of crumpled bits of paper. He handed them to Dan. They were tickets to something, probably a concert, though Dan didn’t recognise the name of the band.  
“What’s this?” he asked.  
“My mate’s in a band,” explained Jones. “I don’t know what the policy is on asking your colleague out on a date, but I’m gonna anyway.”  
Dan looked at him, confusion and affection bubbling inside him. If this was what loving someone meant then he wasn’t sure he knew what to do with it. He couldn’t work out how to respond, and apparently Jones felt like this was his cue to explain further.  
“They’re good tickets,” he said anxiously. “I know it’s not the sort of stuff you usually listen to, but maybe you could give it a shot?”  
Dan searched for something, a word, a phrase, anything that could let him express the confused mess of emotions in his head, but came up blank. He settled for kissing Jones instead.  
This time it was nothing like it had been in the house. There was less fear, less desperation. Jones moved his mouth languidly against Dan’s, tongue occasionally darting out to lick at the edges of his lips. Dan opened his mouth ever so slightly, sighing as Jones practically melted in his arms. It felt like an eternity before they broke apart. Jones was beaming, occasionally leaning in to press tiny, soft kisses all over Dan’s face like he wanted to map every inch of it.  
“Is that a yes?” he asked, a note of teasing in his voice. Dan was about to reply when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye.  
Claire stood triumphantly outside the ambulance, looking almost unbearably smug, but there was a softness to her eyes as well. Dan looked awkwardly at her.  
“I knew it,” she said matter-of-factly, before vanishing into the crowd. Jones watched her go with concern, twisting his fingers in beside Dan’s.  
“Will we get in trouble for this, d’you reckon?” he asked. Dan shook his head.  
“No. I think you’re probably allowed to date colleagues, and even if you aren’t, our DCI was a serial killer. I think we’d have to do something pretty out there to beat that.”  
Jones laughed, leaning his head against Dan’s shoulder.  
“So it is a date, then?” he said.  
“Why not,” Dan replied, slipping an arm around Jones and pulling him closer.  
The minutes ticked by in peaceful silence. Outside there were officers everywhere, all seeming to get in each other’s way. The forensics team wanted to get into the building before anything was disturbed, the coroner wanted the body out immediately, and none of the uniforms seemed to know quite why they were there. Dan watched with a sort of detached interest while Jones’ fingers drew intricate spiralling patterns across his side. After what felt like hours- and quite frankly it could have been- Claire returned.  
“I hate to break this up,” she said with just a hint of sarcasm, “but everyone’s packing up here. You should go home.”  
Dan stood and stretched out his stiff limbs, reaching out a hand to Jones to help the shorter man to his feet. Claire watched them both for a few moments before shaking her head and walking away. Dan and Jones were halfway back to the car when suddenly Dan remembered.  
“Fuck,” he muttered. Jones squeezed his hand and looked at him in concern.  
“You alright?” he asked. Dan shook his head, a red flush of embarrassment creeping up his cheeks.  
“No. I, uh, I kind of got kicked out this morning. As of now I don’t really have a home.”  
Worry unfurled in his stomach, but Jones smiled and wrapped him in a hug. Dan let himself relax against it for a few seconds. Jones smiled against his neck, his breaths warm against Dan’s skin.  
“Come back to mine,” he murmured, pressing a brief kiss to Dan’s lips.   
“I can’t,” protested Dan weakly, some pride still flickering inside of him, but Jones shut him up with another kiss. The man was wonderfully insatiable. He kissed like it was the only thing in the world, and he never seemed to tire of it. Dan placed a hand at the base of the smaller man’s back, supporting him, sighing deeply as Jones’ hands found their way into his hair. When they parted Jones looked straight into his eyes, smiling.  
“We’ll work something out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my friends, this fic has been a journey. For one thing I've never written anything this length before, so that was a milestone for me. I hope you'll excuse the ridiculous amounts of gratuitous kissing in this chapter, but I felt it was warranted. This fandom may be my favourite fandom to write for, you're all lovely.  
> This is definitely one of my less coherent rambles. Sorry. But I hope you all enjoyed this- I certainly enjoyed writing it- and I hope to be able to string enough of a plot together to make a sequel.  
> Love you all a bit x

**Author's Note:**

> Character-wise, I own nothing. Well, except some minor OCs, and I don't want those. I wrote them to be vaguely irritating. Comments are wonderful if you feel like offering any. I think there will be about ten parts to this, but I can't make any promises as of yet. And that's it, please enjoy and let me know what you think :)


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